Jets coach Ash Wilson wants Newcastle to use frustration as motivation as they eye their highest possible finish after producing "one of the best games I've seen them play" but having nothing to show for it.
Newcastle's finals hopes faded with a controversial 1-0 loss to unbeaten A-League Women's leaders Sydney FC at No.2 Sportsground on Sunday night. It left them sixth on nine points, 12 adrift of the top four with fives games to play.
But the Jets felt robbed of a point after Taren King produced an injury time equaliser from a corner to cancel out Princess Ibini's 22nd minute wonder strike only for the goal to be controversially disallowed because Sydney goalkeeper Jada Whyman was deemed to have been obstructed.
"In my mind it was a goal," Wilson said. "I couldn't see any reason why it shouldn't have been. It was obviously an exciting end and then a disappointing end."
Newcastle went into the match, which was their fourth in a fortnight, desperate for points after back-to-back losses.
Sydney (28) had not played for 11 days and were rightly the short-priced favourites. The Sky Blues are now unbeaten in 10 outings and have only conceded once, in a 3-1 loss to Newcastle in the A-League Women's first round.
The Jets attacked with plenty of threat, asking relentless questions of the high-flying Sky Blues' defence but, as has been the case in many other performances this season, could not make the most of their chances.
"They put Sydney under a lot of pressure and I thought a point at the end was quite a good reflection of how much we pushed them and how many opportunities we created," Wilson said.
"We played some good football and we got into some really positive positions. Obviously, it's disappointing not to be able to come up with anything after pushing such a quality team so far."
Newcastle have a chance to regroup this week from a busy fortnight before they host eighth-placed Western Sydney (six points) at No.2 Sportsground on Saturday.
"The goal just has to be to keep winning and finish as high as you can," Wilson said.
"If we can't make the four then we want to finish fifth at least and put the teams below us well below. We want to make sure we take whatever frustration has come out of the end of this game and we take it into those next games and we push and we push to finish as high as we possibly can."
Jets co-captain Gema Simon might not be available for the Wanderers clash after she was unable to return to field after half-time due to a calf complaint that has the Newcastle left-back sidelined for the first six games of the season.
