Wellington Phoenix have squandered an opportunity to move into the A-League's top four with a 2-1 loss to bottom-placed Brisbane Roar on Saturday.
To add injury to insult for the NZ side, they also lost captain Alex Rufer to a knee injury. The All Whites midfielder left the field in the first half, after banging his knee against Roar counterpart Rahmat Akbari.
It was Akbari who gave the Roar their first lead of the game, heading a floated cross into the top left corner in just the seventh minute of play.
The Phoenix played with much more urgency in the second half, dominating proceedings and eventually finding the equalising goal, with Englishman Gary Hooper steering a Jaushua Sotirio header into the back of the net in the 72nd minute.
But the Roar struck back immediately, when substitute Henry Hore converted after his initial shot had been saved by Phoenix goalkeeper Oli Sail just four minutes later.
After the game, Phoenix head coach Ufuk Talay admitted his side didn't deserve to claim all three competition points.
"The performance wasn’t good in the sense that we started off very sloppy and very sluggish," Talay said.
"Second-half, I felt like we grew into it again but still not the normal game that we play.
"We can play a lot better, and we've shown we can play a lot better. It's just one of those games with the short turnaround that I think influenced the game.
"We'll learn from it, and we'll move on."
The loss drops the Phoenix - who still have games in hand - one spot down to seventh on the ladder.
They'll move on to face Newcastle Jets on Friday, when they'll be without Clayton Lewis, Ben Waine, Ben Old, and Sail, who will all be absent on All Whites duty at the Oceania World Cup qualifying tournament in Qatar.
Brisbane Roar 2 (Rahmat Akbari 8’, Henry Hore 76') Wellington Phoenix 1 (Gary Hooper 72')
