The boys were unfancied on Saturday night against Melbourne Victory – after all, on the road against our foes down south is a fixture which hasn’t bore much fruit in the past.
However, an incredible effort in defence and some dogged determination going forward proved the difference for a Newcastle side fighting for their season.
Johnny Koutroumbis was pushed forward early on and made the most of things further afield to put us ahead in the first half, before an absolute screamer from Dimi sealed things in the final minutes.
Two points is now the gap between the Jets and Wellington, three from City in fifth, and five from Adelaide in fourth.
The game started in warm conditions, but you wouldn’t have known it for the pace with which both sides ripped in from the get-go.
Newcastle had one of the first good chances of the match when Roy O’Donovan beat Lawrence Thomas to a ball over the top with around ten minutes gone, however his cutback from the byline was dealt with by Thomas Deng.
With things going end-to-end early on, Glen Moss got down low to make a superb save and deny Keisuke Honda a long-range goal with 20 minutes played.
Dimi Petratos tried curling one from outside the area, but it was an unlikely source which opened the scoring and put the Jets ahead in Geelong.
The man who was wreaking havoc on the left-hand side of the pitch, Jair, whipped a ball in which cleared the defence. Daniel Georgievski hooked it back in and Steven Ugarkovic had a go, and then another.
A deflection off the Victory defence sent the ball loose inside the area, and an extremely advanced Johnny Koutroumbis was on hand to slam home into the top of the net for his first goal of the season and the first of the evening in Geelong.
With the one-goal lead still intact after the break, Victory thought they’d had one back in the 50th minute when Kenny Athiu finished off a nice move crafted by James Donachie but the fullback was offside.
The game settled back into the end-to-end fashion in which it transpired in the opening half, with chances at either end – Dimi hit one over with ten minutes gone which wasn’t far away.
He and Roy combined nicely, but the Irishman couldn’t find a finish at the end of it, before a freekick from the former took a blindingly obvious deflection from close range but Shaun Evans awarded a goal kick.
Keisuke Honda had another chance with a little under 15 minutes remaining but glanced wide, thankfully for the Jets, who looked to be holding on with time winding down.
With our lead still intact as the game wore into injury time, things got just a touch easier when James Donachie was shown a second yellow card after a poor challenge on Kaine Sheppard.
However, the best was yet to come from the Jets. Dimi Petratos, famed for his ability to score bombs from way out, hit an absolute screamer with the clock about to tick over to 95 minutes which nestled in the corner of the net to put the cherry on top of a massive effort from the Newcastle boys.
