Sydney FC failed to make the most of their dominance as Brisbane Roar were able to frustrate their way to a 1-1 Isuzu UTE A-League draw.
After the Sky Blues secured an FFA Cup semi-final by beating the Roar earlier in the week, they were unable to engineer a repeat performance at Kogarah Oval on Saturday night.
Elvis Kamsoba’s searing run set up Anthony Caceres for Sydney’s opener before Nikola Mileusnic levelled up for Warren Moon’s side in the 41st minute.
Sydney remain sixth in the standings, while winless Brisbane picked up just their second point of the campaign.
“I’m a little bit disappointed we didn’t get all three points tonight,” Sydney head coach Steve Corica said. “We really dominated that first half and we got the goal and then we gave away a sloppy one towards the end of the first half.
“We had three one-on-ones with the keeper in the second half, Patrick Wood had one and Harry (Van der Saag) had two to steal the game for us, but we just couldn’t take them.”
The Roar had an early scare when Scott Neville nearly turned a Rhyan Grant cross into his own net, with goalkeeper Macklin Freke able to prevent the goal.
Sydney took the lead when Kamsoba picked the ball up deep in his own half and burst across the half-way line.
The forward avoided a couple of covering challenges to thread an inch-perfect ball through a sea of bodies towards Caceres, who finished clinically in the 34th minute.
But no sooner had Sydney begun to assert their dominance when they struggled to clear a routine ball out of their own penalty area.
A jostling Juan Lescano helped force the ball into the path of Mileusnic who was able to get a shot away.
Andrew Redmayne got across but was unable to turn the ball round the post as Mileusnic’s effort fizzed off the keeper’s hand and into the net – Brisbane’s second goal of the season.
After the break, Brisbane sought to rely on counter attacks and set-pieces to threaten the Sydney goal and Redmayne was almost caught short on one free-kick.
Steve Corica turned to his bench bringing on Max Burgess, Bobo and Harry Van der Saag after his side had failed to muster much response early in the second half.
Van der Saag and Burgess both had opportunities to restore Sydney’s advantage but neither could crack the Brisbane defence.
Sydney recruit Mustafa Amini and Patrick Wood were deployed with 15 minutes to go with the latter unable to fashion a winner when he was sent through on goal in the dying moments.
