It was the penalty non-call that sparked contention at Eden Park on Sunday afternoon – but was it the right decision by referee Chris Beath?
Debate raged on in the aftermath of Wellington Phoenix’s 1-0 win over Sydney FC, in which the Sky Blues were deprived the chance to find an equaliser from the spot.
Just after the hour mark, Sydney attacker Robert Mak broke down the left-hand side and was seemingly brought down inside the area by Payne.
Despite protests by the Sydney players, referee Beath waved play on and wasn’t called over by the VAR to review his decision on a second viewing.
The Sky Blues went on to lose by a single goal at Eden Park, thanks to a lovely header from free-scoring Phoenix striker Oskar Zawada – who nodded home his 12th goal of the campaign and ninth in his last 10 games.
Post-game, Wilkinson was asked about whether he felt a penalty should have been awarded and the Sydney captain felt there may have been enough there to award the spot-kick.
“I thought it looked like a good shout,” he told Sky Sports NZ.
I’ve seen a lot of them given this year so I thought it was a pretty good shout, he wouldn’t have gone down otherwise if he didn’t get a nudge.
“He probably would have had a shot on his next touch so I thought it was a decent shout but obviously it wasn’t to be.
“We’ve just got to be better. We had enough chances to score and with a little bit more quality we would have done so.”
Meanwhile, Payne believes the “right decision” was made by the officials and that Mak went to ground “easily” after his challenge on the ball.
“I didn’t even get anywhere near him,” he told Sky Sports NZ.
“It’s one of those things he was moving at pace and I probably should have moved my feet a little bit better.
“But yeah, I didn’t make any contact. He has gone down very easily and I think it’s the right call at the end of the day.”
Wellington’s home away from home bears fruit once more
Eden Park has become somewhat of a fortress for Wellington Phoenix over the journey.
Sunday’s win continued their unbeaten run inside Auckland’s premiere arena to ten consecutive games, having still not lost in the ‘Garden of Eden’ since playing their first game for points back in 2011.
“The Garden of Eden has been good to us again,” Talay told Sky Sports NZ.
“We got our goal, it was what we needed and the boys dug really deep, grinned and got a result for us.”
After back to back wins, Wellington now sit seven points inside the top six and in fifth place on the table heading into the final six games of the Isuzu UTE A-League season.
Ufuk Talay’s side are also equal on points with both Central Coast Mariners and Western Sydney Wanderers, but remain behind the third and fourth placed outfits on goal difference.
It doesn’t get any easier for the ‘Nix either, who face the red-hot Adelaide United at Coopers Stadium on Friday night.
“First of all, get the boys to recover after that game,” Talay said.
“We’ve got a short turnaround we fly to Adelaide on Wednesday. We had some good performances against them, the first game we had ten men. We nearly played a perfect game with ten men and nearly walked away with three points.
“The home game we beat them so it’s great going to Adelaide. I love the atmosphere there. The stadium is fantastic. It’s got to be a challenging game but we will be well prepared.”
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