Melbourne Victory played out an entertaining 1-1 draw with the Newcastle Jets in the Hyundai A-League on Saturday.
Summary
Roy O’Donovan gave the Jets a first-half lead at McDonald Jones Stadium, but Victory was much-improved after the break.
Ola Toivonen headed in an equaliser early in the second half, but neither team was able to find a winner.
Jets striker Abdiel Arroyo had the ball in the back of the net twice in the opening 16 minutes, but both efforts were disallowed.
Newcastle went close again in the 22nd minute, Dimitri Petratos’ corner hitting the top of the crossbar.
The Jets opened the scoring just moments later, O’Donovan putting away Petratos’ cross via the underside of the crossbar.
Victory goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas made a good diving save to deny Petratos on the stroke of half-time as the visitor went into the break trailing 1-0.
Arroyo threatened again to begin the second half as the striker put an overhead kick wide from inside the area.
But Victory made a better start to the second half and found an equaliser through Toivonen’s 10th goal of the Hyundai A-League season.
Tim Hoogland delivered a wonderful cross from the right and Toivonen headed in to make it 1-1.
As the entertaining second half continued, Petratos curled a 25-yard free-kick wide for Newcastle just after the hour-mark.
Marco Rojas tested Jets goalkeeper Lewis Italiano from distance in the 74th minute and the Kiwi was denied again by the shot-stopper in additional time with the best chance for a winner by either team.
Player in focus
Key moment
What they said – Rojas
on the game…
“We were pretty poor in the first half, both individually and as a team, but I thought we came out well in the second half and it was a very energetic game.”
on the improved second half…
“We had a good talk in the changing room. We know we have good quality players and we were all really disappointed with how we played and we just spoke to each other, amped each other up and made sure that we came out firing in the second half.”
on his late chance…
“Obviously it wasn’t good enough what went through my mind. I’d just been working hard the whole game to try and create chances, disappointed not to put the chance away when it came.”
Result
Hyundai A-League 2019/20 Round 20
Newcastle Jets 1 (Roy O’Donovan 24′)
Melbourne Victory 1 (Ola Toivonen 49′)
Newcastle Jets: Italiano (gk); Millar, Koutroumbis, Boogaard (c), Topor-Stanley, Burns (Hoffman 73′); Ugarkovic, D.Petratos, Thurgate (Hoolahan 62′); O’Donovan, Arroyo (K.Petratos 83′).
Melbourne Victory: Thomas (gk); Gallifuoco, Donachie, Hoogland (Lauton 71′), Traore; Poulsen (Lesiotis 45′), Basha; Nabbout, Rojas, Kamsoba (Hope 83′); Toivonen (c).
Yellow cards: Toivonen 60′, Topor-Stanley 72′, Lesiotis 90′
Red cards: Nil
Attendance: TBA
Venue: McDonald Jones Stadium
Next up
Victory is back at home in Round 21, hosting Adelaide United at Marvel Stadium on Saturday, February 29.
