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12Mar23
Rearguard Action Sees Wellington Sink Sydney
by Jeremy Ruane
A tremendous rearguard action by Wellington Phoenix earned them a 1-0 Isuzu Ute A-League victory over Sydney FC in front of a season's best 10,420 fans at Eden Park on March 12, as Ufuk Talay's team consolidated their position among the competition's top five sides.
They had to work hard for the points, however, with the visitors spending large portions of the second spell in particular encamped in Wellington's half. But Scott Wootton, Tim Payne and company repelled everything those wearing sky blue threw at their navy blue-clad counterparts, and the only aerial duel Oskar Zawada won all day proved to be the game's decisive moment.
Sydney enjoyed the better of the early exchanges, but it was Wellington who engineered the game's first goalscoring opportunity, in the eleventh minute. Payne fired in a free-kick from the right beyond the far post to Zawada, who headed the ball down for Callan Elliot. He directed his fifteen-yard volley past the upright.
The visitors responded straight away, and came within the width of a post from taking the lead. Joe Lolley rampaged down the right before scything inside and presenting Robert Mak with the chance to let fly from the edge of the area.
His first-time strike arced over the flailing figure of Oli Sail, only to crash off the inside of the far post and back into play, a ball Wellington were only too happy to scramble to safety - definitely a bullet dodged by the home team!
They responded by taking the lead in the twentieth minute. Seconds after his hesitance to attack brought to a premature conclusion a promising raid down the right, Elliot was on the ball again, this time cutting infield before picking out Yan Sasse in the centre of Sydney's half.
The Brazilian's enterprising pass picked out the overlapping figure of Lucas Mauragis, who hung up a cross to the far post. Rising above all-comers to meet it was Zawada, who sent an angled header back across the diving figure of Andrew Redmayne and arrowing into the bottom far corner of the net.
That goal sparked renewed efforts from the five-time A-League champions, but it was their own goal which was threatened again in the 28th minute, via friendly fire. Joel King's back-pass was an awkward one for Redmayne to deal with, and the goalkeeper only just managed to adjust his feet in time and get the ball away, the threat of being nutmegged growing by the second.
The visitors found themselves at the right end of the park for all the right reasons three minutes later. Luke Brattan spread play wide to Lolley, who cut inside before letting fly, drawing a parried save from Sail.
Wellington's Perth Glory-bound goalkeeper - his post-season intentions were revealed during the week - was in the action again three minutes later, his raking clearance allowing David Ball to get the better of James Donachie and play in Zawada, only for Alex Wilkinson to step in and allow Redmayne to clear his lines.
Two of the contest's elder statesmen were in the thick of things again eight minutes before half-time, with Wilkinson blocking a Ball cross to safety after the hitherto unseen Bozhidar Kraev had played his team-mate in through the inside right channel.
Wilkinson's block resulted in a corner, which Sasse delivered to the near post. Ball's header was headed off the line by King, with the ball being recycled to Zawada, who drilled a shot past the post.
Seconds later, Sasse worked a one-two with Ball,
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the Brazilian drifting across the top of the box befohre battering a twenty-five yarder on the turn which drew a superb full-stretch save to his left by Redmayne, the last shot of note in a half in which Sydney were already applying pressure aplenty, only for an equaliser to remain elusive courtesy Wellington's stoic defensive efforts.
Those efforts intensified - they had to - in the second spell, as Sydney mounted an all-court press. For large periods of the half, Redmayne was the only player not ensconced in the home team's half of the field, but for all their superiority territory- and possession-wise, the visitors rarely threatened Sail's goal.
They certainly did in the 55th minute, however, a terrific move involving the vast majority of Sydney's team culminating in Mak picking out the overlapping run of King down the left. His low cross careered across the face of goal and past the far post, with the incoming figure of Lolley just a stride away from turning the ball home to level the scores.
Seven minutes later, and very much against the run of play, Wellington mustered their only chance of the half. A tidy spell of possession and passing produced an opening in which Sasse sent Steven Ugarkovic surging through the inside right channel at pace, the midfielder delivering a cross which Zawada met, but could not direct on target.
Sydney looked to hit back immediately, referee Chris Beath rightly waving away penalty claims after Mak collided with Payne in the area. Seventeen minutes from time, however, the visitors found a way through Wellington's defensive maze, substitute Jaiden Kucharski unlocking the door with a driving run through the inside left channel.
His deft lay-off inside was touched on by Mak to Anthony Caceres, whose thumping twenty-yarder was parried to safety by Sail. The ball was cleared as far as Paulo Retre, whose twenty-five yard drive thundered narrowly past the diving goalkeeper's right-hand post.
Sydney kept on pounding away, but time and again found Wellington's solid blue wall to be impregnable. A rising drive from Kucharski, which cleared the crossbar as the game entered stoppage time, proved to be their last attempt of note to level the scores in a contest which saw the home team's efforts rewarded by referee Beath's final whistle.
Wellington's 1-0 win allowed them to maintain their unbeaten record at Eden Park - six wins and four draws from ten games - and leave themselves very much in the hunt for a home play-offs fixture, given they lie just three points off second-placed Adelaide United, their next opponents, with six rounds still to play.
The 10,420-strong crowd which attended Wellington's first visit this season to the city which is New Zealand's home of football was the club's biggest home attendance of the campaign, with the corresponding fixture in Sydney the only other match to have drawn a five-figure attendance to a Wellington match in 2022-23.
Anticipate an even bigger crowd converging on Eden Park on April 16, when Brisbane Roar's visit to Auckland could well see Wellington secure a top-six finish in the for the fourth time in five seasons.
Wellington: Sail; Elliot, Wootton, Payne, Mauragis; Sasse (booked, 41) (Laws, 75), Rufer, Ugarkovic, Kraev (Barbarouses, 58); Ball, Zawada
Sydney: Redmayne; Grant (booked, 77), Donachie, Wilkinson, King; Retre (Parsons, 79), Brattan, Caceres; Lolley (Rodwell, 79) Mak (Wood, 85), Caballo (Kucharski, 70)
Referee: Chris Beath
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