The Phoenix were beaten 2-1 by the Brisbane Roar. Photo: photosport
The Phoenix were beaten 2-1 by the Brisbane Roar in their A-League women's clash in Queensland on Sunday night, with the Roar scoring either side of halftime to cancel out Isabel Cox's maiden A-League goal.
Cox would have scored a second three minutes from fulltime had it not been for Roar defender Leah Scarpelli, who produced a goal-line clearance with her arm.
Despite Wellington's protestations for handball the Nix weren't awarded a penalty.
"It's a clear handball," Phoenix head coach Paul Temple said post-match. "It's a pretty dead set penalty to be honest with you. The camera angle is very clear. It's a handball on the line.
"It's disappointing the officials don't see it because you want them to be picking up things like that.
"It's those moments like that where you've got to ask the question why is there VAR (video assistant referee) in the men's league and not in the women's league. Because if that goes to VAR it's a clear penalty.
"But it's not all about that. You don't want to be a coach that loses the game and blames the referees or one moment like that.
"It's not all about that. They're just factors. We've got to take responsibility for ourselves and improve on things ourselves and be better."
Temple says they need to find some answers for their away game woes.
"We don't seem to be able to complete two good halves of football in a row at the moment and that's really frustrating.
"Definitely an away game is a factor for us and we've got to find a way to get around that because since Western Sydney away we haven't scored in second halves.
"You can see we start running out of gas and if we have to go and chase a game we don't have the capacity to do that unless we make wholesale changes.
"It's not easy but we've got to find a way to get around those things because we've obviously still got away games to come."
The Phoenix have little time to dwell on the defeat, with another road match to come on Friday night against Central Coast Mariners in Sydney.