Nix and Jets put heads together for draw

The sore heads of a post-Australia Day Newcastle Jets survived the Wellington warmth to rescue a point from Westpac Stadium.

If viewers weren’t hungover already, the punchdrunk antics of the Jets and hosts Wellington might have seen to that.

A smart save from each of the two goalkeepers were the early highlights as Mark Paston clawed away James Brown’s free-kick, before Jeremy Brockie was unable to find away around the head of Mark Birighitti in a one-on-one.

However, the hosts did take the lead just three minutes later through an impressively put-together move. Sigmund was the instigator when his diagonal ball found Ifill on the left-wing, allowing the attacker to skip inside Scott Neville and drive the ball between Birighitti and the Jets defence. At full stretch, the Newcastle ‘keeper could only palm the ball into Dani Sanchez as it dropped for Louis Fenton to slot into an empty net.

The visitors might have leveled the score on the half-hour when Andrew Durante’s back-pass sold Paston short, but Brown couldn’t curl the loose ball around both a defender and the stranded glovesman.

Few chances arose through the rest of the half although the ‘Nix did come close to a second after the break when Ifill’s pass across goal was marginally out of Brockie’s sliding reach.

The match swung well into Phoenix’s favour despite that lost chance when fullback Sam Gallaway was dismissed for a second yellow card after bringing down Tyler Boyd on the edge of the area.

Wellington struggled to create opportunities despite their advantage and it came to cost them with 20 minutes to play. First, the hosts were also reduced to ten men when Tony Lochhead’s boneheaded late tackle was punished by a second yellow, before Emile Heskey leveled things up on the scoreboard as well just seconds later. The marquee man held his ground under an attempted clearing punch by Paston to nod in Chapman’s knock-down at the back post.

Far from taking much brain power, it was still the best use of a noggin all afternoon.

The score remained at 1-1 as Newcastle, despite a late substitution mixup leaving Heskey at centre-back, held on to a point.

Wellington: Paston (gk), Bertos, Sigmund, Durante, Lochhead, Muscat, Sanchez, Fenton, Boyd, Brockie, Ifill.
Bench: Moss (gk), Cernak, Totori, Huysegems.

Newcastle: Birighitti (gk), Neville, Chapman, Regan, Gallaway, Wheelhouse, Brillante, Brown, Griffiths, Heskey, Goodwin.
Bench: Duncan (gk), Caravella, Virgili, Taggart.