Mile Jedinak’s last-minute penalty earned Central Mariners a deserved 2-1 victory over Sydney FC in in another incident-packed clash between the neighbouring A-League sides at Bluetongue Stadium.
Jedinak kept his nerve to beat Clint Bolton after Sydney captain Iain Fyfe hacked down Dylan MacAllister.
Sydney’s John Aloisi had equalised, also from the spot on 65 minutes after being brought down by Mariners keeper Danny Vukovic.
Vukovic saved Aloisi’s first kick but referee Peter Green ordered Aloisi to take it again after Pedj Bojic encroached into the box.
Mariners striker Dylan MacAllister gave the hosts the lead in the 11th minute when he prodded home from close range after Clint Bolton had palmed away a cross from Andre Gumprecht that deflected off Brendan Gan.
The hosts dominated the opening period with Adrian Caceres, Sasho Petrovski and MacAllister all going close to increasing the lead as Sydney struggled to get a foothold.
MacAllister, who has been tipped for a Socceroos call-up for the Asian Cup clash with Indonesia in January, had a good chance to impress the watching Pim Verbeek further just before half-time but he blazed over the bar after Bolton had spilt a Caceres effort.
The second half was a more even affair but the home side still looked the more likely to score with Gumprecht and MacAllister going close before Aloisi levelled the scores.
With the game heading for a draw, Fyfe had a moment of madness when he upended the impressive MacAllister and Jedinak did the rest.
Sydney almost immediately hit back when substitute Steve Corica headed wide with the goal at his mercy.
It would have been hard on the Mariners had he found the net and the season-high home crowd of over 11,200 went home happy with their first win in three games.
“I would have felt a bit cheated had we not won after the penalty was retaken which I thought was harsh, but credit to us for coming back and finishing strongly we deserved to win,” said Mariners boss Lawrie McKinna.
Sydney coach John Kosmina was philosophical about his side’s performance and said he felt they did enough to earn a point.
“Credit to Central Coast, they are a good side and I thought they were the better than us in the first half,” Kosmina said.
“However, we deserved something out of it, we battled away, it is the second time this season a late pen has killed us off, but we are a young side with some inexperienced players and this was another lesson for us.”
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