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 on Saturday night, with a 2-1 result against the Central Coast Mariners in Wollongong.
Ben Waine never looked confident on the 86th minute spot kick – there was major confusion around who would be taking it and Reno Piscopo soon left the park rather bemused it wasn’t him – and it was duly saved by Mariners keeper Mark Birighitti.
But while that kept the visitors to Win Stadium in the contest and they threatened in a nerve-wracking seven minutes of stoppage time, they weren’t able to find a late equaliser in what was a dramatic second stanza in which all three of the game’s goals came.
Gary Hooper and Jaushua Sotirio netted for Wellington either side of Marco Ureña’s gift for the Mariners, and goalkeeper Oli Sail again stood tall 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 Mariners, who, after three successive wooden spoons last season returned to the playoffs with a third-placed regular-season finish, were coming off an opening-round victory at Newcastle and had trumped the Phoenix in their most recent meeting.
But, in damp and windy conditions that would have felt rather homely to Phoenix players at their home away from home, they were able to prevail and bank the three points, on the back of their draw with Macarthur last weekend.
Talay made one tweak to his starting XI from that one, injecting Sotirio up front in place of Waine, and it delivered for him, as Sotirio was busy all night, then nailed what proved to be the winner, just after the hour mark.
After an arm-wrestle of a first half where neither side was able to open the scoring, the game exploded to life early in the second spell with the trio of goals in the space of 15 minutes.
Things got going almost immediately, as a sterling 47th minute free kick from Piscopo saw Birighitti fly high and wide to his left for a brilliant save. But that set up another corner for the Phoenix, and this time they struck from the set piece.
