Australia boss Holger Osieck suggests his half-time substitutions cost his side victory against Romania in an international friendly on Wednesday night.
The Socceroos fell behind in the 35th minute when Cristian Tanase netted for the Romanians but rallied to lead 2-1 less than ten minutes into the second half after Luke Wilshire converted a 45th minute penalty and Robert Cornthwaite put them ahead.
However, Osieck made a raft of changes at the break and just after including Mark Schwarzer off for Adam Federici, Wilkshire for Ryan McGowan, Lucas Neill for Rhys Williams and Matt McKay for Nikita Rukavytsya and the German believes it may have been those alterations that caused a second-half slump.
"Without blaming anyone, when we made a couple of changes, there's always a change in the game," he said.
"But it was always clear from the beginning that we would have the changes because I need to have a look at the players.
"This time it was at the expense of our victory but on the other hand, I think we had so many clear chances in the second half and we should have finished that off.
"But that is what you have to pay for if you don't score."
He added: "All in all, I think, in the second half we did pretty well and showed great commitment and it was a very positive from that point of view."
