Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert equated his side's elimination from football's A-League title race to Ireland's World Cup qualifying heartache after a hand ball by Sydney FC goalscorer Chris Payne influenced a controversial preliminary final last night.
Herbert condemned the three match officials who failed to detect the striker using his arm to deflect the ball into the net for Sydney's second goal of an ultimately comfortable 4-2 triumph.
The All Whites coach also questioned Payne's sportsmanship and Sydney FC's ethics in the aftermath of the minor premier's progression to next Saturday's grand final against reigning champions Melbourne Victory.
"Who's going to apologise for that?" Herbert stormed at the post-match press conference at the Sydney Football Stadium.
"It's not acceptable at this level of football irrespective of the result," he said.
"For a player to do that is unacceptable as well, and as a club you've got to consider what your ethics are like...if you accept that then so be it." Referee Peter Green, along with linesmen Rodney Allen and Hakan Anaz all missed Payne cannoning the ball past Liam Reddy with his left arm via a Karel Kisel cross in the 30th minute.
Reddy and the closest defender Andrew Durante remonstrated with the officials as the super-sub celebrated a double 10 minutes after replacing hamstrung veteran John Aloisi.
Herbert drew a parallel with Frenchman Thierry Henry's use of his hand to control the ball before William Gallas tapped in the goal that ended Ireland's dream of playing in South Africa.
"It's no different to how the Irish felt.
"If you're going to lose a football match that's fine -- we've lost a ton of them in our lives -- but it's very disappointing to have something like that." Durante added to the bitter aftertaste by claiming he received contradictory explanations from referee Green after his protests went unheeded.
"He said he didn't see it, then I spoke to the ref at halftime and he said it wasn't intentional -- it's pretty funny that one." Although Sydney dominated proceedings before -- and after -- Payne's fortuitous goal, the Phoenix camp labelled it a turning point.
The demoralised visitors had to chase the game, push up and were consequently caught on the break with the excellent Alex Brosque and Mark Bridge inflating the margin before Eugene Dadi pulled back a consolation goal nine minutes from time.
"Sydney were on top of us a little bit, but to get the goal to get us back at 1-1 and then cop one under those circumstances...it's hard," said Durante, who cancelled out Payne's legitimate strike in 20th minute with the first goal of his 86-match A-League career.
Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka said he had not seen Payne's touch but it was discussed after the game.
"He said he missed the ball by head and played unintentional hand ball," the Czech said.
Sydney's third goalscorer Alex Brosque added: "I couldn't tell if he did it on purpose but it seemed like he got a bit of a shove, he had his head down.
"It's unfortunate but we still got three other goals that were good." Brosque had no specific explanation for Sydney's four-match unbeaten sequence against the Phoenix in 2009-10.
"I guess there's always one team you tend to do a lot better against than others. Gold Coast, we couldn't beat all year -- luckily enough Wellington was a team that we could." Meanwhile, Herbert expressed pride in a team that confounded predictions by making the post-season for the first time.
"I couldn't be prouder. Ninety five percent (of the media) never picked us to even make the play-offs and here we are in a major semifinal," he said.
"We're a force to be reckoned with. We've made a difference to the competition." Herbert could not resist one last dig at Sydney FC noting the 34,000 crowd that roared the Phoenix to a 3-1 win over Newcastle last weekend dwarfed the 13,196 that turned up in Sydney.
