The Jets and Perth have played out a 1-all draw at Ausgrid Stadium on Saturday afternoon in Round 13 of the Hyundai A-League.
The Newcastle Jets and Perth Glory sides have played out an entertaining 1-1 draw at Ausgrid Stadium on Saturday, neither side being able to celebrate the New Year with a convincing win as they shared the spoils.
Perth Glory took an early lead after Billy Mehmet got in front of his defender to convert a Travis Dodd cross after just 9 minutes.
The visitors continued to threaten the Jets defence during the opening exchanges and Mehmet almost doubled Perth Glory-s lead but missed the target with his header in front of goal.
The Newcastle Jets looked to get themselves back in the contest and hit the wood work on 17 minutes after Taylor Regan sent a shot at the back post following a corner.
There was a dramatic turn of events on the half hour mark when goal scorer Billy Mehmet was shown a straight red card for his challenge on captain Tiago Calvano, and Perth Glory was reduced to ten men.
Former Novocastrian Travis Dodd was left as the lone striker for Perth Glory and it took some good defending from Taylor Regan on 52 minutes to prevent the speedy striker from adding to their lead after the restart.
Gary van Egmond again looked to his bench for some inspiration and brought on Francis Jeffers early in the second half. It took him just six minutes to find the back of the net after he headed home Kasey Wehrman-s cross in fine fashion.
Unfortunately for Jeffers, and for the Newcastle Jets, he had to be replaced shortly after coming on and scoring the all important goal for the home side due to an ankle injury.
The Jets continued to dominate proceedings with the man advantage; they continued to press forward for the remainder of the match but could not find the winning goal in front of another strong Newcastle crowd.
“It would have been nice to finish off the year with a win at home; but credit to them they made it hard for us to break them down,” said Michael Bridges following the match.
Newcastle will now go on to face Gold Coast United with a short four-day turnaround, back at Ausgrid Stadium.
Match Details
Newcastle Jets FC 1 (F. Jeffers 61-)
Perth Glory FC 1 (B. Mehmet 9-)
Ausgrid Stadium
Crowd Attendance 10, 439
Newcastle Jets line up: 1. Ben KENNEDY (GK), 2. Taylor REGAN (4. Nikolai TOPOR-STANLEY 67-), 5. Tiago CALVANO (c), 6. Ben KANTAROVSKI (24. Francis JEFFERS 55- (14. Labinot HALITI 69-)), 7. Kasey Wehrman, 10. Ruben ZADKOVICH, 11. Tarek ELRICH, 13. Sung-Hwan BYUN, 8. Jeremy BROCKIE, 9. Michael BRIDGES, 23. Ryan GRIFFITHS.
Substitutes not used:19. Matthew NASH (GK).
Perth Glory line up: 1. Daniel VUKOVIC (GK), 3. Seb VAN DEN BRINK, 4. Billy MEHMET, 5. Steve PANTELIDIS, 7. Jacob BURNS (c), 10. Liam MILLER, 13. Travis DODD, 14. Steven McGARRY, 17. Todd HOWARTH, 19. Joshua RISDON, 21. Mile STERJOVSKI (16. Evan BERGER 69-).
Substitutes not used: 8. Adam HUGHES, 22. Adam TAGGART, 30. Lewis ITALIANO (GK)
