Sydney FC coach John Kosmina admits he's disappointed with the lack of support his young players are giving veteran midfielder Steve Corica. After a humiliating home defeat to Wellington Phoenix on Friday night, Kosmina said: "I'm disappointed with Shannon Cole. I thought Bridgey [Mark Bridge] and Brosquey [Alex Brosque] didn't work hard enough in the first half. Bimby [Steve Corica] did a lot of work - for a 35-year-old. You've got blokes who are in their mid 20s and they can't work as hard as a guy 10 years older.

"But look at the amount of changes we've had to make. We expected a lot out of young Antony Golec and Beau Busch. They've been thrown into the deep end just by sheer circumstance and they've done well.

"There's been a lot of talk about our capitulation last week and maybe that's affected the players emotionally. Golec probably hadn't got over last week. He's a great kid with a great future but he takes a lot to heart. I had to stop him watching the video of last week's game just to get him to think about this week.

"Same with Beau, it's been hard for him. You learn from it. You've got to mature quickly."

Asked what his message would be this week after what he described as "by far our worst performance across 90 minutes for the season", Kosmina said: "Just to keep their heads up. You're going to go through bad times, you're going to go through bad games, where things don't work for you. You've just got to take it in your stride and get on with it. It's professional football.

"You can't sit and dwell on things. You live with that and take it on the jaw. We dust ourselves off and go to Adelaide in two weeks' time and see what we can do down there."