A defiant Sydney coach Kosmina has admitted utilising the home crowd’s frustrations at half-time of its 1-1 draw with Queensland Roar in an attempt to spark a second-half revival.
Clearly looking for an improvement after the home side’s stuttering first-half showing, the fiercely passionate Sydney FC faithful pleaded with their men to come out firingafter ging into the interval trailing the impressive Queensland Roar 1-0.
Kosmina refused to dwell on the negatives at the post-match press conference when asked about the increased vocal presence of the supporters.
“I said at half-time go out there and stick it up the crowd – as simple as that,” Kosmina fired.
Quizzed on his side’s slow start Kosmina staunchly defended his men claiming ‘I think we probably had the better of it’ (the match).
“The first half wasn’t great in terms of the way we conceded the goal but having said that we played some really good football, we moved the ball around exceptionally well,” he added.
“Have a look at the first chance ‘Johnny’ (Aloisi) had, have a look at how we got in (the box) and that’s the positives you’ve got to take out of it, it’s easy to look at the mistakes and pick on those but you’ve got to look at the positives and that’s what I do.’
“And did we turn it around in the second half or not?”
But despite his positive outlook, Kosmina stopped short of declaring his side’s season back on track having now extracted two points from their previous four outings to sit in sixth spot on the standings.
“I hope we can build on it for next week but it’s enough to start rebuilding self belief,” he said.
While ultimately pleased with the point, Queensland Roar coach Frank Farina conceded his side’s inability to capitalise on its early dominance ultimately cost them maximum points.
“The first 60 minutes we had the better of the game for sure, we got a nice goal and most probably had a few chances to put the second one in particularly in that first half,” Farina said.
“And then to be fair to Sydney once they got the goal they most probably had another three or four chances or possibilities but I thought the best chance of the second half belonged to young Mitch Nichols, the (late) header.”
“The disappointing thing for us is you’re leading and most probably dominating the game and it’s the story of our season not capitalising on the chances we create.”
