Sunday, 28 February 2021:

Wellington Phoenix coach Ufuk Talay hailed his team's character after they climbed off the bottom of the A-League ladder by punishing a wasteful Newcastle team on Sunday.

A goal in each half at McDonald Jones Stadium secured Wellington's first win in five matches and their 2-0 victory snapped the Jets' five-game unbeaten run, which had gleaned them 11 points.

Newcastle had 12 more shots than the visitors, but couldn't find a way through a resolute defence.

English striker David Ball, back from a two-match suspension, opened the scoring in the 22nd minute.

His shot from just inside the penalty area deflected off Jets captain Nigel Boogaard, leaving goalkeeper Jack Duncan flat-footed.

Phoenix doubled their lead in the 53rd with a cracking right-foot drive from almost 25 metres from 19-year-old Ben Waine.

"I think the boys showed a lot of character," Phoenix coach Talay said.

"Confidence can be low at times when you're not winning games, but I think the boys were very disciplined, we defended very well.

"It may seem that they had a lot of ball but not in areas where they could actually hurt us, so it was a great shift."

In the first half, Newcastle's Roy O'Donovan had a shot blocked by Phoenix goalkeeper Oliver Sail and was off target with another one and a header.

Nikolai Topor-Stanley twice went close within seconds and Steven Ugarkovic had a strong long range shot deflect just wide.

Sail made an important save from Valentino Yuel just before Waine scored, but the Jets lacked the creativity and penetration to prise open Wellington, who recorded their first clean sheet of the season.

It was just their second victory of the campaign after beating early season ladder-leader Central Coast.

"We had heaps of opportunities in the first 25, 30 minutes and on another day we might have been a couple of goals up, but tonight we just weren't quite good enough in the final third when it mattered," Newcastle coach Craig Deans said.

"We're very disappointed because the goals we conceded weren't great goals, so it was little bit of our own doing.

"We just looked a little bit cautious which we shouldn't be really at home, we should be more confident, we should back ourselves."

A visibly frustrated Deans approached the Wellington bench straight after the game.

"I went over because one of their coaches was trying to intimidate our players, so I don't think that's right," said Deans, who was also frustrated that no Phoenix player was booked for time wasting until stoppage time.

AAP