The Newcastle Jets have almost surely killed the Western Sydney Wanderers Premiership defence as they took advantage of their limp and dour opponents to take a 2-0 win back up to Newcastle tonight.
Goals to Kew Jaliens and Adam Taggart, one in each half, was enough to secure the win on a dismal night for the Wanderers.
Western Sydney weren't in the contest, their trademark intensity and pressing completely absent for large swathes of the match.
The two teams took until the half-hour to mark an impact on the match, Emile Heskey smashing a long range effort toward the bottom right hand corner, only for Ante Covic to turn the ball around the post. Newcastle took the lead shortly after, as the Wanderers failed to clear their lines from a corner, Andrew Hoole whipped in a second effort to the back stick, Jaliens had stayed up and was rewarded with a free header that he couldn't miss at point blank range to open the scoring. Questions will be asked about the location of left fullback Adam D'Apuzzo who was nowhere to be found for what should have been his defensive duty at the far post.
Newcastle came again in the second half, Taggart was played in by Heskey but he couldn't get past Covic. The Wanderers didn't heed the warning, as Taggart doubled the Jets advantage minutes later. Another Heskey pass found Taggart, he spun around Topor-Stanley and fired a shot that deflected off the outstretched leg of Matthew Spiranovic to loop over Covic.
The Wanderers had precious little opportunity to score, managing just a solitary shot on target. This was arguably the worst 90 minute performance in the history of the club and with the Sydney Derby coming up next weekend Tony Popovic will need to lift his side if they are going to have any chance of keeping in touch with Brisbane Roar.
The Wanderers next match is against Sydney FC, at the Sydney Football Stadium at 7:45PM on Saturday the 8th of March.
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