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07Dec19
VAR Helps Wellington Edge Wests
by Jeremy Ruane
A late Ulises Davila penalty, awarded thanks to the Video Assistant Referee, earned Wellington Phoenix a 2-1 victory over Western Sydney Wanderers in a Hyundai A-League clash watched by 8,851 fans at Eden Park on December 7.
The visitors enjoyed the better of the first half, although it was Wellington who engineered the first opening, Tim Payne's fourth minute ball forward for Jaushua Sotirio being well anticipated by Daniel Lopar, who dashed out of his penalty area to head the ball to safety.
Western Sydney retorted immediately, a stumble by Liberato Cacace allowing Bruce Kamau to pounce on the ball and feed Kwame Yeboah, who drilled a twenty yarder narrowly past Stefan Marinovic's right-hand post.
Three minutes later, Wellington's 'keeper produced a fine one-handed save to deny Yeboah on the edge of the six-yard box, after the striker had worked a one-two with Nicolai Muller, who himself went desperately close in the tenth minute, stabbing the ball narrowly past Marinovic's near post after Mitchell Duke made in-roads down the left.
Marinovic was at full stretch to keep out a twenty-five yarder on the run from Muller in the nineteenth minute, while the Wellington custodian superbly kept out a bullet header from Matt Jurman thirteen minutes later as the defender rose high to meet a pinpoint Pirmin Schwegler corner, awarded after Cacace had blocked a shot from the corner-taker following Kamau's initial raid.
Another Muller effort eight minutes before half-time, this time a shot on the run from twenty yards, was smothered by Marinovic, who was relieved to see the final act of note in the half take place at the other end of the park, Matt Steinmann's shot from the edge of the area being blocked after he worked a one-two with David Ball.
Wellington had been highly ineffective in the first spell, but they were a completely different animal after half-time, Ball being thwarted by Lopar's save at his feet after Payne, enforced early substitute Cameron Devlin - on for an injured Alex Rufer - and Davila combined to prise open Wests' defence within a minute of play resuming.
A minute later, the home team took the lead with a goal straight out of the Route One manual. Captain Steven Taylor pinged the ball forward, Ball deftly flicked it on, and Sotirio, racing in behind the defence, calmly lobbed the advancing figure of Lopar to open the scoring.
Cue a sequence of flowing attacks at both ends which were thwarted by solid defensive efforts, punctuated in the 52nd minute by a gathering of the clans after a naughty challenge by Davila on Daniel Georgievski, who certainly got some mileage out of it, behaviour which earned him the wrath of Wellington's fans whenever he touched the ball throughout the remainder of the contest.
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Their boos of Georgievski turned to groans in the 64th minute when the fullback, joining an attack upon receipt of an inviting pass from Duke, surged forward before threading a pass through to Muller, who deftly side-stepped the last defender prior to angling a shot across Marinovic and into the far corner of the net - 1-1.
Immediately, Wellington spurned a great chance to regain the lead, Ball blazing wildly over after Sotirio's incisive inside left thrust set up the striker, who should have at least hit the target.
The arm wrestle-like nature of the contest continued, but gradually Wellington gained the upper hand. Thirteen minutes from time, Devlin and Davila combined to pick out Cacace's run down the left, the fullback scything into the area before firing across the face of goal under pressure.
Two minutes later, Lopar was right behind a shot from substitute Callum McCowatt, who latched onto a Cacace pass two minutes later and fired a first-time shot which Lopar saved superbly at the base of his near post.
After Davila drilled a twenty-five yarder narrowly over the bar, the Mexican danced his way into the penalty area five minutes from time, unleashing a drive which struck the forearm of Schwegler and ricocheted narrowly past Lopar's left-hand post.
Referee Daniel Elder initially awarded a corner, but the Video Assistant Referee encouraged him to have another look at matters, and after much deliberation, he changed his original decision and pointed to the penalty spot, from where Davila sent Lopar the wrong way some four minutes after the incident which led to the goal.
Wellington took their 2-1 lead into seven minutes of stoppage time, during which Yeboah fired Wests' best chance of an equaliser wildly over the bar before the home team came close to netting a third with virtually the last attack of the match - Ball's solo raid past four opponents deserved better fate than to be denied by Lopar's fine one-handed save.
The visitors were still livid at having had at least a share of the points denied them by the late VAR call, and as the final whistle blew, many of their men converged on referee Elder, who beat a hasty retreat down the tunnel with his team to avoid their ire, so swiftly that hardly anyone from the victorious Wellington side had the chance to thank the officials for their contribution to the evening's entertainment.
Wellington: Marinovic; Payne (booked, 66), Taylor, DeVere, Cacace; Sotirio (Hooper, 83), Rufer (Devlin, 41), Steinmann (booked, 49), Piscopo (McCowatt, 79); Davila, Ball (booked, 17)
West. Syd.: Lopar; Georgievski (booked, 88), McGowan, Jurman (booked, 27), Wilmering (Ziegler, 66); Baccus, Schwegler (booked, 89), Duke; Kamau, Yeboah, Muller (booked, 90) (Meier, 90)
Referee: Daniel Elder
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