Star striker Mate Dugandzic admitted Melbourne Heart FC rode its luck in securing a 1-0 win over the Wellington Phoenix in Morwell yesterday.
Star striker Mate Dugandzic admitted Melbourne Heart FC rode its luck in securing a 1-0 win over the Wellington Phoenix in Morwell yesterday.
Despite carving a number of gilt edged opportunities, Heart was only able to find the back of the net on the stroke of half time through Dugandzic, before again wasting a series of chances in the early stages of the second period.
While the Phoenix were somewhat fortunate to remain within touching distance of Heart, in the closing stages of the contest, the Kiwi-outfit came agonisingly close on numerous occasions to making Heart pay for its profligacy in front of goal.
‘Keeper Clint Bolton was called upon to deny Tim Brown from close range while the crossbar proved the saviour later on, with Daniel Sanchez curling a free kick into the cross bar.
Dugandzic acknowledged the industrious nature of Heart-s performance, saying the team played with fire towards the latter stages of the match.
“Today-s game wasn-t a great game for us, as John said, it probably wasn-t one of our better performances, but we were fortunate enough to get away with the three points,” he said.
“Closer to the end of the first half, I thought we were dominating a little bit, but towards the end of the match, we sat back a lot and let them play, which is dangerous, as you don-t want to concede.
“In the second half, we were under a lot of pressure, with some great defending, and we were fortunate a free kick didn-t go in, but you take your three points, without playing particularly well.”
