Central Coast Mariners coach Lawrie McKinna believes his side didn’t play well enough during the second half to earn a point in its 2-2 draw with Perth on Saturday evening.
Although Central Coast has become renowned for sensational comeback draws with Adelaide and Sydney earlier this season, McKinna said this effort didn’t fall into that category.
McKinna felt his side had looked good taking the lead through a 30th-minute Mile Jedinak free-kick but fell apart as a brace from Nikita Rukavytsya put Perth back in front just after the hour.
But the coach was still happy to take a point back to Gosford after his team caught the Glory napping during added time, with a poor clearance from Dino Djulbic eventually falling for Sasho Petrovski to slot home.
“I think we’ve deserved the (other) comebacks,” McKinna said.
“(But) we didn’t deserve it today.”
“I feel that was lucky today. Perth dominated the second half, they had us under all sorts of pressure and probably missed the easiest chance of the game.”
“I think it was Rukavytsya for his hat-trick, he could have tapped in but I think he missed the ball and we were very fortunate, but we did come back.”
“Last week we were unlucky we didn’t get a goal allowed (in a 2-1 loss to Melbourne), so it just balances out over the season.”
“The boys have got belief (too) … but it doesn’t matter how much belief you’ve got, the second half performance after they scored the second goal wasn’t good enough, so we were just fortunate,” he said.
McKinna was also disappointed with Nigel Boogaard for a poor challenge on Adrian Trinidad in the 89th minute that led to the defender’s dismissal, although he admitted there was a positive outcome.
“Nigel was silly for what he’s done,” McKinna said.
“It was undisciplined for him to do that and he’s put his hand up and apologised.”
“It’s obviously disappointing for us to have a man sent off but we actually created a few more chances when we had 10 men, so maybe it was a good tactical decision from Boogs to get sent off,” he said with a wry smile.
The result sees Central Coast leapfrog Wellington back into the top four. Both sides have 18 points but the Mariners shade the fifth-placed Phoenix on goal difference.
