Wellington Phoenix coach Ufuk Talay has blamed a "soft" red card for costing his team victory in their 2-2 A-League Men draw with Perth.
Phoenix defender Tim Payne was controversially sent off in the 55th minute, judged to have prevented a clear goalscoring opportunity when he dragged down Perth's David Williams as the forward looked to break through.
Williams, a former Phoenix player, capitalised on the numerical advantage to score twice - the second a stylish diving header on 80 minutes - to rescue a comeback point for the Glory.
Wellington had led 2-0 after 20 minutes thanks to another goal for red-hot forward Oskar Zawada - who found the net for a fourth straight game.
Winger Kosta Barbarouses capitalised on a handling error from Glory keeper Cameron Cook to add a second before Williams kicked off the Perth fightback.
But it was the VAR decision to upgrade referee Lachlan Keevers' yellow card for Payne to a straight red that frustrated Talay.
"The outcome (of the match) is decided by the officials," Talay said.
"(Williams) was never going to get to the ball ... (Callan) Elliot is behind Payney as well, to be able to deal with it.
"The officials had a long look at it ... and decided it was a red card, which was quite soft.
"They kept coming at us, you could say we were possibly a bit lucky that the ball hits the post a couple of times but overall the main thing was playing with 10 men we didn't lose the game."
Perth hit the woodwork twice in the game's latter stages, substitute Giordano Colli striking the bar with a looping header before centre-back Mark Beevers smashed the post with a close-range effort from a perfectly delivered corner.
Glory coach Ruben Zadkovich was proud of his team's fight-back but said they would need to tidy up their defence to continue pushing up the table.
"I'm extremely proud of the character and resilience the boys have shown there," he said.
"What's important is we didn't get lucky to get back in the game, we played our way back into it and that's really important.
"(There's) some positives with the ball and a little bit to work on defensively.
"On the balance of the game we probably should have won ... the way we're moving the ball is certainly improving."
Zadkovich said his initial view of the red-card incident was that VAR had reached the right decision.
"For me, it looks like - if it's a foul - he's the last man and David Williams goes through and scores ... it's a pretty clear goalscoring chance," he said.
"If it's a foul, it looks like a red card."
The comeback meant the Phoenix's winning streak ended at three, while the Glory have now gone five games without defeat.
