Carl Veart was pleased after Adelaide United secured its first win of the season with a convincing 4-0 victory over Wellington Phoenix on New Year’s Day.
The Reds snapped a five-match winless run in the process after Craig Goodwin scored a brace from the penalty spot and George Blackwood and Javi López both chipped in with goals.
Veart was glad his side were finally rewarded for a strong performance.
“(The result was) satisfying for the whole group,” Veart told reporters in the post-match press conference.
“I think so far this season the players have put in a tremendous effort and have played some good football and they just haven’t got the rewards.
“I’m happy for the players that they got their rewards tonight for the work that they’ve done so far.”
At 16 years and 350 days Steven Hall became the youngest goalkeeper in the history of the Isuzu UTE A-League when he deputised for James Delianov just past the half-hour mark.
Veart praised the youngster’s temperament for what was a confident outing.
“I’ve known him for a while through the youth programs,” he said.
“He’s trained exceptionally well, he’s been coming to training now pretty much full-time since school broke up last year.
“He’s been exceptional at training and tonight Eugene (Galekovic) had to make the decision out of the two young goalkeepers who was going to sit on the bench and Steve got the nod.
“Ethan (Cox), it was unfortunate he was unwell during the week, so he missed a couple of sessions so that’s football.
“Sometimes you get luck and you’ve got to take it, I thought tonight he was excellent for a young 16-year-old kid to come in like that and perform like he did was very good.
“It can be challenging for a goalkeeper to come on, not just a young goalkeeper but any goalkeeper to get up to the speed of the game.
“He didn’t really put a foot wrong, was confident when the boys were passing the ball back to him – that’s full credit to him, I’m very happy for him.”
The boss was also pleased about the number of chances his side created on the night, particularly scoring two goals from balls into the box.
However, Veart admitted it is a facet his side can continue to improve in.
“We’ve said all the time that we’ve been creating opportunities but we just haven’t been taking them,” he said.
“We just haven’t been getting enough numbers in the box and our crossing from positions where we didn’t really want to cross the ball.
“And we worked and concentrated a lot on that in this two week break because we’ve had a big break between the two games.
“And I think the players were a little bit rusty and we worked on that on the training ground.
“Tonight, I think we got into better areas and some of our delivery was better, but we still have work to do in that area.”
