A 90th minute strike from Englishman John Curtis has ignited Gold Coast United’s season and handed them a 1-0 victory over Newcastle at Skilled Park on Wednesday night.
Curtis' 25-yard blast ended a 583-minute run of football at Skilled Park where the home side had not logged a goal.
In just his third game in United colours the 32-year-old came from the bench in the 54th minute to add to a baron tally of career goals.
"I think I have made about 300 senior appearances and scored three goals – so it’s one in a hundred," he said.
"And I guess there wasn’t much (Newcastle) could do about it with just a few minutes left. If you are going to score, that’s the time to do it."
Newcastle coach Branko Culina was disappointed to go down after his men stole the ascendency with an attacking second-half.
"(Gold Coast) had a go in the first-half and didn’t do a great deal so I thought we had a shot in the second," he said.
"We had our chances but like (captain) Michael (Bridges) said we need to be more ruthless. It’s disappointing to come away with nothing."
"But I take my hat off to Curtis. A right-back makes a 50-metre run and hits it with his left foot from 30-metres. I’ve dreamt a lot but nothing like that."
The Gold Coast jumped into fifth-place with a game in hand on most teams while Newcastle remain second last.
United controlled much of the match but looked as though they would be forced to settle for a draw until the former Manchester United defender intervened with his left-footer cannoning into the crossbar and down into the net.
Zenon Caravella and Adama Traore were sharp creating chances for United, but never has the loss of Shane Smeltz been more evident with Andrew Barasic misfiring on a series of shots that the two-time Golden Boot winner would have buried in his sleep.
For the Jets Ruben Zadkovic created plenty for himself while Labinot Haliti was in everything else that the visitors did.
United came out in their promised aggressive mood but with Caravella and Traore playing extremely wide the visitors were happy to let them play around with the strikers off target.
United had a golden chance to open the scoring in the 13th minute when Robson was aided into space by Steve Fitzsimmons on a one-two. The Brazilian received the ball unmarked at the top of the box but opted to tap on for a surging Barasic who fired straight into the arms of Jets ‘keeper Ben Kennedy from point-blank range.
Jets Striker Haliti was causing the most concern for United’s backs. At the 14th minute Haliti got on the end of a Nikolai Topor Stanley cross in between defenders but headed wide, then at the 36th minute he had Dino Djulbic back-pedalling on a 60-metre run but blasted his low shot to the left of goal.
Jason Culina also had chances to break the deadlock. 23 minutes in he snapped wide with a scissor-volley but 17 minutes later came his best chance which he narrowly missed after nice interplay with Bruce Djite.
Thirty seconds in Traore and Culina combined to create another chance for Barasic who again fired into the waiting hands of Kennedy with a goal at his mercy. Five minutes later Barasic had another tougher chance from 45-degrees but