Kalezic praises tactical discipline
Darije Kalezic does not want to dwell on the past, but could hardly avoid it on Saturday night.
The Wellington Phoenix coach watched his side grab their first away win of the season in a 3-2 triumph over the Newcastle Jets on Saturday night with a performance that highlighted their progress since the start of the campaign.
The Phoenix blew a few big halftime leads during that time, and it looked as though history might repeat at McDonald Jones Stadium when Jets striker Andrew Nabbout scored three minutes into the second half to make the score 2-1 to the Phoenix.
But unlike earler in the season, the Phoenix didn’t implode. Instead, they got their heads down, worked hard and found a third goal through Roy Krishna.
There were still some nervy moments towards the end as Marco Rossi gave away an 86thminute penalty, converted by Dimi Petratos, but there wasn’t the widespread panic across the team that had been the feature of the capitulations this season.
Kalezic took pride in his team’s performance.
‘‘The team showed really high team tactical discipline.
‘‘I am very happy to be honest, because you all know many times we give advantage away in the first minutes of the second half and give games away in the first part of the second half.
‘‘The way how we recover after the [47th minute] goal, only a solid team can do [this], the squad who think on the same way and we show discipline, no panic at all and we did what we discussed with each other before the game and we scored the third goal, which means for us in that moment a really huge advantage and helps us to win the game.’’
Kalezic identified Petratos as a key man to shut down, handing Matthew Ridenton the job of manmarking him all game.
Ridenton’s performance drew praise from his former coach and now Jets mentor Ernie Merrick.
‘‘That was total man-marking, on the ball and off the ball. A young player, who I signed for the Phoenix. It’s good to see him doing well. I wish he hadn’t done so well [against us], but that’s going to happen and we’ve got to learn to cope with it.
‘‘When Dimi pulled him out of the middle we had no-one coming in there to take advantage of that space.’’
Newcastle had a couple of early chances to take the lead, but were denied by Phoenix goalkeeper Lewis Italiano, who earned manof-the-match honours.
The match also saw January signings Matija Ljujic and Nathan Burns earn their first starts. Ljujic scored the first goal when his cross eluded everybody, including Jets goalkeeper Jack Duncan, while Burns buzzed around and was always looking to create something, eventually setting up Krishna for the winning goal.
Kalezic said having them in the squad would help to lift all of the players at the club.
‘‘This is what we want in the future, more players who don’t play reactive football, but players who know exactly what they’re going to do, where they have to stay a couple of seconds later.
‘‘Players who are proactive and also quality players that means also our Kiwi players and those players who are on the level of the A-League, that with those quality players, we can give them a push in the right direction in terms of development.’’
The win means the Phoenix have taken seven points from their last three games, after taking seven from their first 13. They still sit last, but are two points off seventh and five off the top six, with a game in hand on most teams in the league.