In City’s only victory this season it delivered a clean sheet, but in its three losses 12 goals have leaked through the Ballarat defence – five of those were conceded on Saturday night against Moreland Zebras in a fiery 5-2 loss.

Coach Danny Gnjidic said the side was “a long way off” where it needed to be defensively and that would be its main focus in the coming weeks.

“We made a fantastic start...(but) we seem to be conceding goals in clusters at the moment,” Gnjidic said.

“Our response to conceding one isn’t great and then the second and the third one followed.

“We’ve got some defensive issues we’ve got to fix.

“We’ve kept one clean sheet – and that was the game we won – otherwise we’ve conceded three, four and five (goals), that’s definitely a problem.”

Ballarat City began the game in great fashion scoring the opening goal after nine minutes courtesy of Dom Swinton, but Moreland, kicking with a strong breeze, responded in the 20^th minute which triggered a costly 20-minute patch for the home side.

In the shadows of half-time, the Zebras had produced another two goals – an own goal and a penalty conversion, nonetheless a 3-1 deficit faced Ballarat.

Hope remained in the City camp, but as the Zebras scored their fourth goal at the 65-minute mark, it began to unravel for Ballarat.

Shaun Romein received a straight red card before coach Gnjidic, arguing the red, was also asked to leave the playing arena.

The wheels threatened to fall off for City, but to their credit they continued to press and create opportunities and were rewarded in the 85^th minute, before the visitors responded on the counter attack for their fifth.

“A two goal lead wasn’t something that was unsalvageable, so I think they went in with a bit of hope.

“Conceding that (fourth) goal was obviously a killer blow and then they lost their way a little bit.

“If there’s one thing I cannot fault this group for it’s their preparedness to fight a game out. They did that today and I was rapt they got that second goal.

“They don’t (lose belief) and that’s something to really build on.”