Melbourne Victory had the better of the game, but earnt just a point in a two-all draw against Perth Glory at Olympic Park on a warm Melbourne Thursday evening.
Damian Mori put Glory ahead early with a typically speedy break which caught the Victory defence flat-footed. Archie Thompson levelled mid-way through the half with a well-struck left-foot shot from the edge of the penalty-area.
Daniel Allsopp - who had become a father only the day before the game - then put Victory ahead a minute before the interval. But Nick Ward equalised just after the hour at a time when Glory's prospects looked bleak. Defender Ante Kovacevic, who had come on at the start of the second-half, was himself replaced following a re-injury to his calf, leaving the Glory bench bare from then on.
"It was a magic point for us," said Glory coach Alan Vest after the game. "(Melbourne Victory) must be disappointed."
"The first half was all Melbourne's. We were poor," he said. "We're a bit underdone (because of the mid-season break) - we don't have anyone to play against in Perth."
As Vest had suspected, Victory coach Ernie Merrick was indeed a disappointed man. ""We played them off the park," he said. "I thought the game was ours."
The failure to garner all three points on offer makes Victory's Finals challenge more difficult. Perth retains its three point lead over Melbourne, and with just fifteen more on the table, time is running out.
Merrick was not conceding the task was beyond his side though. "We'll win more games (in the run home) than we'll lose," he said.
Mori's opener came barely five minutes in. Adrian Leijer and Geoffrey Claeys failed to take responsibility for a ball played forward and allowed Mori to slip in between them and speed away to plant a left-foot shot past Michael Theoklitos. Mori had passed Leijer without the young defender seemingly alert to the danger.
The vociferous Victory support had been without their team since mid-December and were in raucous form until that point. Their mood was improved shortly after when Kristian Sarkies required a fine diving save from Glory goalkeeper Jason Petkovic to divert his well-struck free-kick around the post for a corner.
Victory has been the A-League's success story. After sixteen rounds, Melbourne has the league's highest average home attendance at just under 16,000. As Olympic Park holds only a few more - indeed the attendance averages more than 85% of the ground's capacity - the atmosphere is palpable.
The support's jitters however returned at the quarter-hour mark when Bobby Despotovski out-paced the Victory defence to send the ball into the net past Theoklitos only for Auckland-based referee Peter O'Leary to disallow the goal for an errant arm-ball by the Glory striker in the immediate lead-up.
But stand-in captain Thompson brought the crowd back to life with a shot on the turn after Richard Kitzbichler and Kristian Sarkies combined to send the ball to the right front edge of the penalty-area. Thompson controlled the ball with his back to goal then swivelled, striking it again as it fell beyond Petkovic's despairing leap.
Victory then gained a grip on the match as Thompson and Kitzbichler put on a display, showing their speed and skill on the ball, and causing the Glory defence considerable difficulty in marking as they covered every bit of forward territory. Sarkies and Michael Ferrante were also prominent, tightening up after the disastrous opening quarter-hour. When Allsopp converted from a pass from Sarkies as the interval beckoned, it was well within the balance of the half.
Vest began the second half with Kovacevic replacing David Tarka in the Glory back four. Tarka had been booked late in the half. The change helped Glory stem the Victory raids without it doing much to tip the balance of the game Glory's way.
The change eventually proved the wrong move as Kovacevic injured his knee without a single player, opponent or team-mate, in the vicinity. Vest was forced to use his last sub as cover. If that was Vest's darkest moment, his mood was drastically improved just a few minutes later. Ward was quick to respond to a parried Despotovski header from a Jamie Coyne cross, looping a shot over the prone Theoklitos and into the net. The ball had crossed the line, but Despotovski ensured it hit the back of the net and it was he who was credited with the goal on the official team-sheet.
Michael Ferrante wasted an excellent opportunity to regain the lead when he took advantage of a defensive mix-up only to blast his shot into a diving Jamie Harnwell who got his legs to the ball for a block. A few minutes later Ferrante had a volley from twenty metres which flew just over.
Thompson, then Sarkies, then Kitzbichler were all withdrawn towards the end of the game as Victory strove for the winner without luck.
"I ran my feet into the ground," said Thompson. "I had to lead from the front."