Brisbane Roar fell to the Newcastle Jets by a score of 4-0 in their Isuzu UTE A-League match on Friday night at McDonald Jones Stadium.
Four goals after the intermission gave the Jets all three points as the Roar suffered their biggest defeat of the 2022/23 season.
Brisbane’s head coach Warren Moon made one change to his starting lineup from last week’s draw with Melbourne City with Henry Hore starting in place of Louis Zabala, who dropped to the bench.
Shots on goal were few and far between in the opening stanza with both goalkeepers able to comfortably deal with the shots that made it to them with Jordan Holmes denying Angus Thurgate and Knowles’ effort claimed by Jack Duncan.
Brisbane captain Tom Aldred was a one-man brick wall in the first half, continually snuffing out Newcastle attacks and putting his body on the line several times including an lunging effort to block a Daniel Stynes shot after half an hour.
The sides went into the break level and Moon went to his bench at the start of the second half, calling on Louis Zabala to replace Jack Hingert and switching the formation around.
Scott Neville had a header on target saved by Duncan not long after play resumed but the deadlock would be broken at the other end minutes later.
Reno Piscipo drove past multiple defenders before finding teammate Jausua Sotirio with a slide rule pass and Sotirio blasted it across the face of Jordan Holmes to open the scoring.
On the hour mark Moon went to his bench again, calling on Ayom Majok to replace Joe Knowles and the youngster was able to get half an hour into his legs.
Newcastle would put the game beyond doubt with a pair of goals in the 71st and 75th minutes from Trent Buhagiar and Beka Mikeltadze respectively.
As a part of a triple change for the Roar in the aftermath of the Georgian’s goal, Moon gave a debut to new signing Marcel Canadi, with the Austrian becoming the 202nd player to debut for the Roar’s men’s team.
With the Roar committing numbers forward for a late goal, Jets substitute Archie Goodwin finished the scoring off with his side’s fourth in stoppage time.
Brisbane will now turn their attention to next Saturday’s trip to Coopers Stadium when they take on Adelaide United with kickoff set for 6:45pm AEST.
