Phoenix claim first season win in A-League confidence boost

A missed penalty didn’t even matter, as the Wellington Phoenix extended their club-record unbeaten run by chalking up their first win of the A-League Men season last night, with a 2-1 result against the Central Coast Mariners in Wollongong.

Ben Waine never looked confident in taking the 86th minute spot kick and it was duly saved by Mariners keeper Mark Birighitti.

But while that kept the visitors to Win Stadium in the contest, they weren’t able to find a late equaliser in what was a dramatic second stanza that saw all three goals.

Gary Hooper and Jaushua Sotirio netted for Wellington either side of Marco Uren˜ a’s gift for the Mariners as Ufuk Talay’s side made it 13 on the trot without defeat, and for just the second time in the past nine seasons, have gone unbeaten in their first two matches of a campaign.

The Nix were able to prevail and bank the three points.

Talay made one tweak to last week’s starting XI, injecting Sotirio up front in place of Waine. After a scoreless first half, the game exploded to life early in the second spell with three goals in 15 minutes. Things got going almost

immediately. Hooper flicked the ball in, with the goal eventually cleared after a long VAR check for offside.

But almost as quickly as they scored, the Phoenix served up a golden invite to the Mariners and Central Coast equalised in the 52nd minute thanks to a shocking mistake at the back from Josh

Laws. Turning to deal with a longhit ball, Laws produced an awful back pass that got nowhere near Oli Sail and allowed Uren˜a to slot home. Uren˜ a was in the action again soon after, but after another save from Sail stopped his side going behind, they snatched the lead back minutes later.

Surging upfield, Ball found Sotirio, who produced a superb low shot across the body which bounced in off the left post.

Phoenix spent the final 20 minutes without Sotirio and Callan Elliot, who succumbed to ankle and shoulder injuries, respectively.