Mariners face up to wooden spoon after crazy loss to Roar

The Mariners are destined to end the season with yet another wooden spoon.

Brisbane’s Eric Bautheac shapes up for a spectacular bicycle kick to give his side the lead against Central Coast Mariners at Gosford Stadium. Picture: Getty Images

A season that started with some promise will now end in despair for the Central Coast Mariners, who are all but assured of yet another wooden spoon after their loss to Brisbane Roar in Gosford last night.

Needing to win to have any chance of overhauling the Roar for the A-League’s unwanted prize, the Mariners, who finished the game with nine men, tried hard but paid the price for too many defensive frailties in going down 5-3 in front of just 4173 fans.

They are now eight points behind second from bottom Brisbane, and are headed for their second successive wooden spoon and third in the past four seasons.

Down 4-2 after 62 minutes, the Mariners were forced to play with 10 men for the rest of the game after Aiden O’Neill was sent off after receiving a second yellow card. Captain Matt Simon was also shown red after getting a second yellow in the dying seconds of the match.

Brisbane’s victory was built on a huge contribution from their visa players with the French, Spanish and Danish influence making a mark grabbing four goals between them.

Frenchman Eric Bautheac scored a double while Spaniard Alex Lopez and Dane Thomas Mikkelsen also contributed. Dylan Wenzel-Halls provided the Australian flavour with the fifth.

Bautheac’s stunning 31st minute bicycle-kick goal was the highlight of a crazy game between the two cellar dwellers.

Understandably, there was plenty of aggro in this game with referee Stephen Lucas forced to issue seven yellows and two reds with the home side on the wrong end of six bookings and the two sending-offs.

Lucas, who had a poor game in my opinion, was the focus of the wrath of the Mariners fans both at halftime and at the final whistle. Mariners assistant Nick Montgomery had to be prevented from confronting Lucas at the end of the game.

Where do you begin to describe what happened in a first half that featured five goals in the space of the last 15 minutes?

The Mariners looked sharp and caused some problems for a Roar side that initially struggled to get into the game.

But it all turned on 31 minutes when the visitors took the lead against the run of play thanks to a serious contender for goal of the season from Bautheac.

With his back to the goal, the Frenchman showed remarkable skills to control the ball with his chest then produce a bicycle kick to sneak his effort inside the near post and give his side the lead on 31 minutes.

Brisbane then doubled the lead four minutes later when Lopez smashed a first-time volley from just inside the box into the back of the net, leaving the Mariners shell-shocked.

However, the home side managed to respond just two minutes later with the impressive Matt Millar charging down the right before sending in a cross for Connor Pain, whose looping header found the net inside the left post.

The real drama came in the final minute of the half.

First Bautheac delivered a pinpoint cross that found Mikkelsen, who looped a header over goalkeeper Ben Kennedy to make it 3-1.

But the Mariners were far from done and were quick to respond with O’Neill showing some lovely touches to get past a defender before sending a low, hard drive that found the bottom left corner of the net to make it 3-2 at the break.

Mariners coach Mike Mulvey admitted that his side had been poor defensively, but it was clear he was upset and frustrated by the officiating.

“Where do you start … there were a few frustrating things,” Mulvey said. “We are gutted we lost the game and in the manner we have done.

“We scored three goals at home and conceded five and that’s absolutely not good enough, but at the end of the day we just want a fair crack of the whip and I don’t think we got that tonight.”

Mulvey admitted his players had become frustrated.

“You can never excuse when players lose their head or get sent off, but the amount of frustration they must have been feeling … that the whole world is against us. It didn’t help.

“Matt Simon is a combative player but he never got one free kick tonight but was brought down several times in the box for two clear penalties that weren’t given,” he said.