Western United FC's two-game stint in Ballarat has gone from bad to worse after the A-League Women ladder-leaders suffered a second-consecutive defeat at Morshead Park on Wednesday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It was the second-to-bottom Newcastle Jets who came away with a shock 2-nil victory, dealing United just its third loss for the season.
United coach Mark Torcaso said post-game that he could not put his finger on what the difference was.
"I think we left our run late, obviously we played the second half really well, I think we did enough that we probably should have won the game in the end," Torcaso said.
"We started off very poorly again so that is two games in a row that we've started off poorly."
The Jets broke through in the 38th minute as Taren King found the back of the net, before doubling their lead just two minutes into the second half through Ashlee Brodigan.
"Newcastle has a new coach in place so they came ready to play and win," Torcaso said.
"Them coming out and scoring straight away in the second half put us on the back foot immediately so after that we were just chasing.
"We had some chances there that we probably should have finished and would have finished normally but I guess that's football and we'll reassess and get ourselves organised for Saturday."
United now has just two full days to recover before a top-of-the-table clash with Melbourne City FC.
"There was enough good things to see in the second half, we've still got a lot of work to do as a team collectively," Torcaso said.
"We played well enough in the second half so hopefully we can take a little bit of that into Saturday."
For Newcastle, it was the first win of the season for interim coach Gary van Egmond, who stepped up to lead the side following Ash Wilson's departure.
"The girls were great, their effort was good and we've only had them for just over a week so they've responded pretty well," van Egmond said.
"We created a lot of chances today, we probably could have taken a few more but on the balance of the game I thought it was a fair result."
The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Jets and creates a five-point gap between them and last-placed Wellington.
"We worked on a way in which we thought we could affect Western United today in regards to how we press," van Egmond said.
"You can always have all these great plans on the whiteboard but the girls have to go out there and execute and I thought they were terrific today."
Western United FC Women host Melbourne City at AAMI Park on Saturday.
United's Men side will return to Ballarat on March 4 for a date with the Perth Glory.