Melbourne Victory head coach Kevin Muscat praised his team for its persistence after coming from behind to draw 2-2 against Adelaide United.
Besart Berisha put Victory in front at Adelaide Oval with a header, but a Vince Lia brace gave the Reds the lead on Friday night.
However, Mitch Austin came off the bench to secure a point for Victory, which finished the stronger of the two teams.
Muscat felt his team deserved its equaliser and praised Victory for continuing to push late on.
“I think they ask certain questions of you with the way they play and, for the main, I thought we dealt with it quite well,” he told Fox Sports.
“We scored a very good goal for the first one. You could sense in the players they were comfortable because they knew they were playing some really good stuff there.
“When we had the ball, it was always along the ground, always on the grass and trying to move through the thirds and create opportunities and not rely on percentages.
“In the end, you see the last 20 minutes and it’s more of the same persistence and without a doubt we got our just reward.”
Austin equalised seven minutes after coming on, finding the bottom corner when a loose ball fell to him in the area.
The equaliser, from @mitchaustin10 #ADLvMVC
? @FOXFOOTBALL pic.twitter.com/6pX65FOsem
— Melbourne Victory (@gomvfc) October 20, 2017
Muscat praised the winger for his positivity after replacing Leroy George, whose set-piece was headed in by Berisha for the opener.
“It’s always important that everyone believes they’ve got a contribution to make,” he said.
“Like always, when you do come on, you’ve got an opportunity to influence the game and not only that, he was real positive when he got the ball, getting to the byline and running at people and putting them on the back foot.
“Probably disappointed we didn’t take all three points but to be 2-1 down, we can see when we got the equaliser we were the team getting the game going and wanting the game to be played rather than stop and stall.”
