Davila: We need to be more clinical

Wellington Phoenix captain Ulises Davila is refusing to use the team’s lack of home advantage as an excuse for their poor start to the A-League season, instead demanding more accuracy in front of goal.

The Wellington Phoenix dropped an expected three points by losing 2-1 to the previously winless Newcastle Jets on Sunday – their second consecutive defeat at their temporary home in Wollongong – despite putting up twice as many shots as their opponents.

The game was played in front of a crowd of just 1742 people – the smallest home attendance in the club’s history – and defender Luke DeVere joked ‘‘a large portion’’ of that was Cameron Devlin’s family.

The Phoenix have only tasted victory once in the 10 games they have played since their last appearance on New Zealand soil, when they beat Melbourne Victory 3-0 at Sky Stadium last March.

‘‘Sky Stadium is our home, we have the supporters there and last season we were very strong there and for sure we miss home,’’ Davila said.

‘‘But we don’t have this excuse, we just have to adapt to the circumstances and try to do our best.’’

The Phoenix produced 23 shots to the Jets’ 11 and hit the post twice before Davila scored a late consolation goal from the penalty spot.

But the Mexican playmaker warned they must be more clinical if they want to end their winless run against surprise leaders Central Coast Mariners in Gosford this Sunday.

The unheralded Mariners have made a mockery of pre-season predictions to win three of their first four games and have only conceded one goal, giving them the best defensive record in the league.

‘‘It’s frustrating for everyone because we created a lot of chances to score, we were playing good football, we were trying to command the games, and it’s frustrating that we don’t have the results. But we just have to keep working.’’

DeVere had a powerful header superbly saved by Newcastle Jets goalkeeper Jack Duncan early in the first half but the defender said that he was more concerned by the goals that the Phoenix conceded rather than their toothless display in front of goal.

The Jets scored both of their goals on the counter-attack, exploiting the lack of pace in the Phoenix back-four.

DeVere said they will have to tighten up defensively if they want to beat the highflying Mariners, who are coming off an impressive 2-0 win over defending champions Sydney FC.

‘‘We’ve talked amongst ourselves about trying to be a tough team to break down and unfortunately on the weekend we probably gifted them two goals that we could have prevented quite easily,’’ DeVere said.

‘‘You look at the two goals, they were both from counter-attacks and the Macarthur goal the other week was a similar sort of thing; from a transition moment, so that’s what has hurt is in recent weeks.

‘‘But it’s something that is very preventable, something we can address quite easily and hopefully we can get on top of that relatively quickly and cut out those opportunities out for the opposition.’’