Newcastle Jets miss chance to close gap on top six against Adelaide

Newcastle missed the chance to move just one win outside the A-League top six with a scoreless draw against Adelaide United.

Adelaide’s Craig Goodwin takes on the Newcastle defence during their scoreless draw at McDonald Jones Stadium. Picture: Getty Images

Newcastle missed the chance to move just one win outside the A-League top six with a scoreless draw against Adelaide United at McDonald Jones Stadium.

With sixth-placed Wellington losing on Saturday to Sydney 1-0, seventh-placed Newcastle had the chance to close the gap to the finals places to three points with seven rounds remaining but they offered little in attack against the Reds after a hectic schedule of games.

Playing their fourth match in 12 days, the Jets were backing up from Tuesday night’s 4-1 loss to Kashima Antlers that ended their Asian Champions League run in Japan.

Without key attacking weapon Ronny Vargas (hamstring), Newcastle looked flat against the fourth-placed Reds, who went closest to scoring when Craig Goodwin managed to get in behind the Jets’ defence in the 42nd minute but powered his shot into the crossbar.

The Jets forced a save from Paul Izzo in the 67th minute when substitute Joey Champness’ miscued volley almost lobbed in under the bar.

Neither side, though, put the opposing goalkeeper under regular pressure in a game of mainly half chances.

Newcastle move to 23 points, five short of the top six, while Adelaide are on 31.

Jets coach Ernie Merrick was looking at the positives of holding on for a point against the fourth-placed Reds. “The boys were very tired,” Merrick said. “I think we missed another clever player in attacking midfield like Ronny and we’re going to miss Jason (Hoffman) up front but, considering what the boys have been through, I thought they fought right until the end.

“We created a couple of chances, they created a couple of chances and I thought a draw was probably a fair result.

“That means we’re another point closer to sixth spot, which is five points away from us, so we’re creeping in the right direction and survived this horrendous schedule but it eases off from here on.”

“I think we played a good game away, we had in the first half control of the game and we could have scored with two chances, we have to score one goal for sure, Goodie (Craig Goodwin) found only the cross bar,” Adelaide coach Marco Kurz said.

“We had maybe the better chances, it is not easy for us at the moment, we have a lot of injured players and the replacement for Jordan Elsey was Mickey Marrone but Mickey did a good job.

“At the end the minimum aim was to hold the points distance (from Jets) we can live with a draw better than Newcastle.

“We travelled here to Newcastle to win, we are happy, the team fought very good from our side it was a very serious game and we waited for the right moment.

“I remembered in the past we played too many long balls and conceded in the past six goals, now it’s good to have a clean sheet.”

Agencies