A late Petratos strike secured the points for the Roar on a hot afternoon in Gosford.
It was a very quiet first 45 minutes with Central Coast trying to show the league that they can defend. They sat back and let the Brisbane Roar have the majority of possession and forced them to shoot largely from outside the area. The biggest talking points from the first half came around the 40th minute when the Mariners had a penalty appeal followed by a possible Stefanutto sending off but no action was taken on either occasion and probably rightly so.
The second half started in a similar fashion to the first but the Mariners worked their way back into the game. It wasn’t until late on in the match that the deadlock was broken and it was by a substitute in Petratos who fizzed one into the top corner of the net.
Mariners hitting on the break
Central Coast are yet to keep a clean sheet this season and on a hot day in Gosford they had clear intentions to shut out the Roar and hit on the counter. Mitch Austin was the outlet ball for the Mariners as they tried to utilise his pace against Hingert. O’Donovan was very isolated up front for the Mariners as he tried to hold the ball up for the oncoming support.
The Mariners held their shape well at the back and frustrated the Roar for the majority of the game, but were not able to hold out in the end as they came away with nothing to show for their efforts.
Roar will be sweating on Maclaren
Jamie Maclaren has been scoring goals for fun so far this season and the confidence that is flowing through this young man becomes more and more obvious every week. Whenever he picks up the ball the first thing on his mind is to look for goal. He has been using his pace to great effect this season as he makes fantastic runs in behind the defenders.
The only criticism to his game is he can be wasteful at times. On some occasions he could try and hold the ball up or play in a team-mate but he, like many strikers around the world, is selfish at times and rightly so. Unfortunately, he was forced off with an injury early in the second half and was replaced by Solorzano. The Roar will be eager to have their key striker back for their big clash next week with Melbourne City.
Substitutes were the key
Dimitri Petratos came off the bench and proved to be the difference on the afternoon as he changed the game. He worked hard down the right-hand side and was able to cut inside and superbly strike pastCentral Coast Mariners goalkeeper Paul Izzo late on to score the winning goal.
After picking up a hamstring injury in game week five, Fabio Ferreira has had to watch his team from the rehab room. He came on with 15 minutes to play and this was greeted with the biggest cheer of the afternoon from the home fans.
Outside 90 Player of the Year
3 – Dimitri Petratos
2 – Mitch Austin
1 – Corona
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