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From the resultant corner, Mustafa Amini’s effort was blocked, and the ball fell fortuitously for Andrew Nabbout. He looked up, saw only one defender between himself and Sydney’s goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne, who was almost 100m away, and started sprinting as fast as he could.
Nabbout unleashed a flying Jamie Maclaren, who then found Leckie at the back post. His attempt was saved by Redmayne, but the ball then ricocheted into a hapless Paulo Retre and trickled into the net.
Ninkovic levelled the scores eight minutes into the second half when the scraps from a corner fell to him at the back post, thumping the ball home via a deflection.
Two minutes later, he could have put Sydney in front from a one-on-one with Tom Glover, but was put off by the advancing City goalkeeper and uncharacteristically ballooned his shot well over the target. At the death, Leckie made him, and them, pay.
“I think we showed great character tonight,” City coach Patrick Kisnorbo said.
“They did dominate possession, Ninkovic had a chance, but besides that, it was one of those hard-fought games. We need to improve the performance, yes, we need to work hard and learn, yes, we need to follow our processes, yes, but we put that aside, I think. The players deserve a bit of credit, their character was phenomenal.”
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Earlier, the Newcastle Jets and Macarthur FC fought out a thrilling 2-2 draw at McDonald Jones Stadium, where Beka Mikeltadze celebrated his eighth goal of the season with a touching tribute to Ukraine.
Upon scoring his 33rd-minute penalty, after the VAR picked out a handball on Lachie Rose, the Georgian striker ran to a bag behind the goals, which he had evidently placed there earlier. It contained a white T-shirt with the Ukrainian flag drawn on it, which he held aloft to the crowd and then draped over the nearby advertising hoardings.
Tommy Uskok had put the Bulls in front 12 minutes earlier, with goals in the second half from Tommy Oar and Eli Babalj – his first in the A-League for almost a decade – ensuring the points would be split.
Meanwhile, Western Sydney Wanderers’ double-header against Wellington Phoenix on Sunday has been delayed due to the incessant rain across NSW. According to an A-Leagues statement, the surface at CommBank Stadium has been unable to drain and deemed unfit for play due to the rising Parramatta River and the “increased level of the surrounding water table”.
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