The Newcastle Jets have gone down 5-0 to Melbourne Victory this evening at Telstra Dome in front of the largest crowd of the 2008/09 Hyundai A-League season thus far.
The Newcastle Jets have gone down 5-0 to Melbourne Victory this evening at Telstra Dome in front of the largest crowd of the 2008/09 Hyundai A-League season thus far.
The first half hour was a see-saw affair, during which neither team could dominate the game nor dictate the tempo on the lumpy surface.
The game would spring to life in the 33rd minute when the Victory had a superb opportunity to open the scoring when striker Danny Allsopp was played in by Carlos Hernandez. Allsopp-s shot was brilliantly saved by Ante Covic and the parried effort was cleared off the line by impressive young Jets defender Ben Kantarovski.
End-to-end action ensued for the remainder of the half and the Jets went close to breaking the deadlock on 37 minutes when some delightful one-touch football from Jin-Hyung Song and Joel Griffiths resulted in an opportunity for Matt Thompson. The utility-s first-time shot was saved low by returning Victory goalkeeper Michael Theoklitos, however.
In the 40th minute, Costa Rican international Hernandez made the breakthrough with a thunderous strike inside the area after he received a fine through ball from substitute Archie Thompson, who came on in the 24th minute to replace an injured Michael Thwaite.
A frantic final period would follow Hernandez-s goal, and an uncharacteristic error from a Covic goalkick gave the ball to Melbourne. Thompson made the most of the opportunity, finishing well to send the Victory to the halftime break with a 2-0 lead.
The second half would begin as the first ended, with Melbourne on the front foot despite the dogged efforts of the Jets. It didn-t take long before Melbourne added to their tally and it was once again Thompson and Allsopp in the thick of the action with the latter finishing with a simple tap-in.
After 64 minutes Allsopp sealed his brace after getting in behind the Jets defence from a Ney Fabiano flick-on and finishing calmly once he was one-on-one with Covic.
The visiting Jets team fought hard throughout the remainder of the second half, but would be stung late on by substitute Grant Brebner who scored with his first touch from a 20-yard strike in injury time.
Head coach Gary van Egmond summed up his team-s lacklustre performance as a simple tale of two halves.
“First half I thought we didn-t do too bad, there were patches there where we created a number of opportunities, and a couple of poor decisions allowed them to get in and copping that goal just before halftime was a real killer,” van Egmond said. “The second half was extremely poor. There-s no excuses for that. It looked as if they-d given up and that-s very, very un-Newcastle-like.”
Melbourne Victory Squad: 1. Michael THEOKLITOS (gk), 2.Kevin MUSCAT (c), 3.Michael THWAITE (10. Archie THOMPSON 24-), 7.Matthew KEMP, 9.Danny ALLSOPP, 11.NEY FABIANO, 12.Rodrigo VARGAS, 14.Billy CELESKI, 16.Carlos HERNANDEZ (8. Grant BREBNER 89-), 17.Jose Luis LOPEZ, 19.Evan BERGER
Unused Substitutes: 20. Mitchell LANGARAK (gk), 15.Tom PONDELJAK
Yellow Cards: Nil
Red Cards: Nil
Newcastle Jets Squad: 1. Ante COVIC (gk), 3. Jade NORTH (c), 5. James HOLLAND, 6. Jesper HAKANSSON (15. Jason HOFFMAN 72-), 8. Matt THOMPSON (23. Edmundo ZURA 54-), 9. Joel GRIFFITHS, 10. Jin-Hyung SONG, 11. Tarek ELRICH, 12. Jobe WHEELHOUSE (18. Noel SPENCER 85-), 13. Adam D-APUZZO, 16. Ben KANTAROVSKI
Unused Substitutes: 20. Ben KENNEDY (gk)
Yellow Cards: 11. Tarek Elrich 22-, 6. Jesper Hakansson 69-, 12. Jobe Wheelhouse 73-
Red Cards: Nil
Melbourne Victory: 5 (Carlos Hernandez 40-, Archie Thompson 45 +2-, Danny Allsopp 60-, 64-, Grant Brebner 90 +1-)
Newcastle Jets: 0
Referee: Mark Shield
Crowd: 22,589
