Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell was impressed his players didn’t throw in the towel after going a man down in the 2-2 draw with Newcastle.
The Jets were leading 2-1 on the hour when Glory skipper Jamie Coyne, in his 100th appearance for the club, received a straight red for a clash with Newcastle forward Jin-Hyung Song in a collision that also involved Perth’s Eugene Dadi.
Mitchell may have been concerned his defence was about to be picked apart as it was in round three, when Dino Djulbic was sent off against Sydney and the Sky Blues cruised to a 5-2 victory.
But the coach needn’t have worried as his side responded to Coyne’s dismissal by assuming control of possession through the midfield and eventually equalising during added time via a late Dadi penalty.
It was just reward for the Glory however, in a thrilling contest that also saw Newcastle’s Daniel Piorkowski dismissed nine minutes after Coyne, with Adrian Trinidad winning the injury-time penalty for Dadi, although the cool striker had to take it twice following some encroachment in the box on the first attempt.
“(I’m) relieved really,” said Mitchell following the match, despite the Glory dropping to last on the Hyundai A-League table, albeit just four points adrift of fourth-placed Queensland.
“I think the second half we pushed and pushed and pushed to get an equaliser and hopefully it would have been earlier ’cause I think we would have gone on and won the game.”
“Obviously we didn’t start off the best … (but we) showed a lot of fine spirit and character to come back in and we were pushing for the result and thankfully we got a result towards the end,” he said.
During the first half, a sensational through ball from Jets’ midfielder Jobe Wheelhouse allowed Joel Griffiths to fire home the opening goal of the afternoon.
Nikita Rukavytsya equalised 11 minutes later, slamming it into the top-right-hand corner of Ante Covic’s net as the Glory took advantage of a poor piece of distribution from the Newcastle stopper.
But the Jets took the lead once more on the stroke of half-time as Mark Milligan’s forty-metre pass picked out Tarek Elrich running down the right flank, allowing the speedster to accelerate past Scott Bulloch and rifle the ball past Tando Velaphi.
It was a tough introduction to left back for Bulloch, who had come on just forty seconds earlier, replacing the injured Naum Sekulovski, who’d strained his knee slightly.
But Mitchell was impressed with Bulloch’s character as he responded with a fine performance in the second half, the ECU Joondalup graduate combining with Nick Rizzo to send in waves of crosses from the left, while Wayne Srhoj stepped up a notch through the midfield, delivering several penetrating balls into the area.
But, while Mitchell was thrilled with the team performance, the coach couldn’t help but single out Djulbic for praise after the centre-back played a full 90 minutes just seven days after limping out of last weekend’s win over Wellington with a rolled ankle.
“Let me just say there’s one player that’s committed to getting fit and on the park, its Dino,” Mitchell said.
“He was bugging the physios and that and getting in three or four times of treatment a day, but it’s paid off.”
