Newcastle Jets have recorded their third win of the season by defeating Wellington Phoenix 1-0 at EnergyAustralia Stadium tonight. In a mainly lacklustre encounter, the Jets were able to pull through thanks to a stellar Marko Jesic goal early in the second half which allowed his side to move above Wellington into seventh place on the A-League table.
A-League Week 15Newcastle Jets: 1 (Marko Jesic 55') Wellington Phoenix: 0
Venue: EnergyAustralia Stadium, Newcastle Crowd: 12,147 Referee: Gerard Parsons Yellow cards:NJ - Ali Abbas 29' WP - nil
The opening produced little to write home about as the home side slightly shaded possession but did not test the Phoenix keeper at all in the first 20 or so minutes.
Newcastle looked the more likely of the two sides to get on the scoresheet first but, all in all, the contest provided very little in terms of attacking play until Marko Jesic went extremely close just after the half-hour mark.
Neither side could manage to get a dangerous shot on target besides Jesic's earlier effort as the first half came about with much ado about nothing.
GOAL Ten minutes after the re-start, the Jets put their positive play to use when Jesic was found on the edge of the area with a searching ball before he turned on a pence and slotted home with his right foot, giving Wellington keeper Mark Paston no chance and sending the EnergyAustralia fans into raptures.
Six minutes later, Jesic should have made it two to the good in favour of the Jets when he found plenty of space on the right flank but this time his shot wasn't good enough to test Paston as the visitors lived to fight another day.
The home side managed to hold out any advances from the visitors to notch up another with which enabled them move above Wellington on the table and into seventh with a superior goal difference.
Starting Line-Ups
NJ Ben Kennedy (gk), Taylor Regan, Adam D'Apuzzo, Nikolai Topor-Stanley (Wheelhouse 71'), Ben Kantarovski, Kasey Wehrman, Tarek Elrich, Marcello Fiorentini, Marko Jesic, Ali Abbas, Francis Jeffers (Rooney 75')
Subs - Matthew Nash (gk), Jobe Wheelhouse (71'), Sean Rooney (75', Petrovski 81'), Sasho Petrovski (81')
WP Mark Paston (gk), Manny Muscat, Nick Ward, Leo Bertos (Daniel 71'), Paul Ifill, Chris Greenacre (Pavlovic 63'), Troy Hearfield, Vince Lia, Ben Sigmund, Andrew Durante, Simon Elliott
Subs - Danny Vukovic (gk), Mirjan Pavlovic (63'), Daniel (71'), Dylan Macallister
