Wellington Phoenix player Hope Breslin shows her frustration. Photo: photosport
Wellington Phoenix have suffered an agonising one-goal defeat to Central Coast Mariners to dent their women's A-League campaign.
The 2-1 loss at Sydney's Leichhardt Oval was Wellington's fifth straight loss by one goal on Australian soil and their sixth this season overall as they stayed fourth but dropped back closer to the chasing pack.
Phoenix head coach Paul Temple labelled the performance "incredibly disappointing".
"It's pretty emotional at the moment," Temple told reporters.
"It's hard to get true clarity on what's going on in the games, especially tonight.
"I just feel for the supporters. They're spending a lot of money coming to watch us play and travelling around Australia. We can hear them from the sideline but we're not really giving them anything to really cheer about at the moment.
"At the moment we're a team that's lacking in confidence in our ability to navigate through games and to really find our rhythm and our identity at the moment and that's the most disappointing thing for me.
"We had lots of discussions through the week about being a team that can fight, scrap and win battles when we need to, and be a team that can play good football and play through teams when we need do, and having to have the balance between the two, and we were absolutely nowhere near that balance again tonight.
"We weren't good enough defensively and we weren't good enough offensively either so there's a lot of soul searching to be done."
Paul Temple made three changes to the side which started Sunday's 2-1 defeat to Brisbane Roar, with holding midfielder Kate Taylor and forward Emma Main returning from injury and illness respectively, while attacking midfielder Alyssa Whinham was named to make her first start of the season.
Main got the Phoenix off to a dream start, pouncing on a wayward pass from Mariners 'keeper Casey Dumont and curling a shot into the bottom right corner just three minutes into the match. It was the team's 50th goal in their history.
Central Coast grew into the game, collecting a number of corners and putting pressure on the Wellington backline.
Their American forward Rola Badawiya should have equalised in the 22nd minute, but she made up for her mistake moments later when she showed some real quality to cut into the box and slot her shot into the far corner of the Phoenix goal.
Goalkeeper Rylee Foster continued her excellent game when she rushed off her line and smothered a close-range opportunity for Mariners defender Faye Bryson. There was nothing she could do when Peta Trimis was slipped through on goal and expertly slotted home Central Coast's second.
As the game drew to a close, Central Coast had more of the ball, frustrating Wellington, who had to rely on sporadic counter attacks and set pieces, but their final ball was lacking.
The Wellington Phoenix will turn their attentions to a round 13 match against leaders Melbourne City in Melbourne next Saturday.