{"id":9180,"date":"2024-02-08T05:18:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T16:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=9180"},"modified":"2024-02-08T05:18:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T16:18:03","slug":"phoenix-draw-with-mariners-in-top-of-table-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=9180","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix draw with Mariners in top of table clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wellington Phoenix and Central Coast Mariners’ clash has ended in stalemate – leaving the New Zealand club two points clear on the men’s A-League standings.<\/p>\n

Neither side could find the back of the net in a tactical battle between the two top teams in front of a season-high crowd of 12,301 at Sky Stadium.<\/p>\n

“I’ll take the point,” Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano said.<\/p>\n

“Did we play our best? I’d say probably not. Did the fact that we played a couple of days earlier affect the quality? Yes, but they also went through it.<\/p>\n

“I’m happy we didn’t lose, but I go into every game thinking that the three points is what we desire.<\/p>\n

“It was a good contest. I felt as though tactically we matched each other well. We just basically cancelled each other out.”<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

Alex Rufer shoots at goal for Wellington Phoenix against the Central Coast Mariners.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0photosport<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is Wellington’s sixth clean sheet of the season and comes against the highest scoring team in the league.<\/p>\n

“It was pleasing. I felt like the gameplan did work. But when defensively you do well that’s the perfect opportunity to capitalise,” Italiano said.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t think we countered as well. Mind you they set up pretty well.<\/p>\n

“I thought there was some really positive moments in that first half. I think we had two, maybe three, really good cutbacks if we go back on the video we probably should have scored.<\/p>\n

“I was a little bit annoyed towards the end because I think we still had opportunities to get forward, but I didn’t have the right personnel coming off the bench to make the impact I wanted.”<\/p>\n

It was a sloppy first half in the Wellington sunshine, both teams failing to create serious scoring opportunities, Kosta Barbarouses’s wayward late header being one of few shots at goal.<\/p>\n

The second 45 saw much the same, the Mariners forcing a couple of late saves from Alex Paulsen.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix were without striker Oskar Zawada, who had only recently returned to the pitch, due to a groin injury and were also missing Nicholas Pennington, Sam Sutton and Mohamed Al-Taay.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix next host the bottom placed Western United on Saturday.<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wellington Phoenix and Central Coast Mariners’ clash has ended in stalemate – leaving the New Zealand club two points clear on the men’s A-League standings. Neither side could find the back of the net in a tactical battle between the two top teams in front of a season-high crowd of 12,301 at Sky Stadium. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9182,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions\/9182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}