Brisbane coach Ross Aloisi has applauded his team's attitude following a flawless second half performance that guided the Roar to a 2-0 A-League Men win over Adelaide United at Coopers Stadium.
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The home team shaded the first half on Sunday, but Aloisi's men emerged from the halftime interval a different side and landed the first blow through Jez Lofthouse on 48 minutes.
Midfielder Jay O'Shea made it 2-0 six minutes later and the Roar should have scored twice more when Nikola Mileusnic got in behind the Reds defence, but he was denied on both occasions by strong saves from Adelaide goalkeeper Joe Gauci.
Aloisi, coaching for the first time against the club he once captained and where he was a former assistant to current boss Carl Veart, said he was in awe of his player's never-say-die mentality.
"In the second half, I knew what was going to happen," he said.
"We knew, the players knew. We spoke about it, we showed them, but again it was the attitude and the attitude impressed me the most and I spoke about it during the week.
"It's the Queenslander mentality, it's that never say die attitude and it's a fighting mentality and that's what I want to see.
"That's what players want, it's what the supporters want and it's what makes me the most proud of the team."
United were on top early in the first half, going on to register 14 shots to Brisbane's six, and 10 corners to two.
But, the visitors flipped the script after the break as Aloisi tinkered with tactics and made a few adjustments.
"There were a few things in that first half that we saw that we needed to be better at," he said.
"There was mainly three things that we showed at halftime and then it became attitude.
"And that was basically it. It was the team that wanted the win the most and was willing to push the ball around and play their football. And we should've been easy, four goals up, easy."
Veart acknowledged a very good opening 45 minutes from his side, before conceding the Reds failed to fire after interval.
"I thought the first half the boys did exceptionally well," he said.
"We stopped them pretty much from playing and we just didn't reward ourselves with the good play in the first half with a goal.
"We came out in the second half and a couple of lapses in concentration and a couple of wrong decisions at critical parts in the game that cost us in the end."
Australian Associated Press
