Tips Challenge

Jets slip out of finals

Monday, 29th December 2008 10:41pm
Newcastle Jets slipped out of finals contention after the loss to the Central Coast Mariners having taken an early lead in that match.

The defending champions are on have 15 points and are 10 points adrift of the Mariners who currently lie in fourth place and have 25 points.

The maximum points the Jets can now get from their remaining four matches is 12 but they also have a goal difference of -10 and therefore finals are out of the equation now.

The Jets' next battle is now to avoid getting the wooden spoon and that battle begins with the match away to the Wellington Phoenix who can still reach the finals.

There was a one goal margin win in all the matches in round 17 and for two consecutive rounds there have been no draw.

Apart from the Perth/Adelaide match there was a goal in the last ten minutes of the match in the other three matches.

One interesting statistic to come from the Melbourne/Sydney match is the fact that this is the first time this season for a home team to win after trailing at half time.

Away teams have won twice after trailing at half time this season and the second of those matches was the match between Jets and the Mariners where the Mariners where trailing 1-0 at half-time but emerged 2-1 victors at full time.

With no draws in two consecutive round, this week we will look at the number of draws for each team and the goals scored in those draws.

The table below shows the number of draws so far this season and the goals involved in those draws.

Team	Played	Goals For	Draws
Central Coast Mariners	17	12	7
Newcastle Jets	17	9	6
Queensland Roar	16	5	5
Sydney FC	17	5	5
Perth Glory	17	8	4
Wellington Phoenix	17	4	4
Adelaide United FC	15	5	3
Melbourne Victory	16	2	2

The Mariners have had the highest number of draws and the high number of goals scored in the draws is due to the two 3-all draws.

Victory has drawn the least with just two draws and is closely followed by Adelaide with just three draws so far.