Central Coast coach Mark Johnson has praised his players after their 3-1 loss to Sydney FC brought an end to their 12-game undefeated A-League streak.
The Sky Blues' star midfielder Anthony Caceres ran rampant in Saturday's wet-weather skirmish, notching an assist before finding the back of the net himself at Industree Group Stadium in Gosford.
Extending their own unbeaten run to four games, Sydney have slipped back into the top six, leaving second-placed Central Coast to reckon with their first loss since November.
"We weren't intimidated. We were far from that. We just fell short," Mariners coach Mark Jackson said.
"The performance in the first half was not at the standards we expect of ourselves as a group and we paid the price for that.
"A 20-minute spell in the first half and you go three goals down.
"It's a really, really tough thing to get yourself out of and I was really pleased with the fight that we put in the second half.
"Even right until the end, we were pushed and tried to get back into it."
The visitors burst from the blocks when Rhyan Grant capped a nodded pass from Caceres with a header of his own to draw first blood in the fourth minute.
Central Coast argued Sydney's Fabio Gomes was offside but referee Jonathan Barreiro ruled the Brazillian striker was not involved in the play.
Rattled, the Mariners' defence began to unravel and they fell further behind four minutes later.
Caught in a pack of four defenders, Caceres outdanced his opponents to slide the ball home past goalkeeper Daniel Vukovic to make it 2-0 with less than nine minutes on the clock.
Far from finished, the 31-year-old then tore forward to deliver Sydney's third goal in 20 minutes.
Caceres fired a pass towards the unmarked Patrick Wood in the box only for Mariners defender Dan Hall to stick his boot out and divert the ball into his own net.
Wood, returning from a one-match ban for a red card, could have made it 4-0 before halftime after picking up the ball off a failed Vukovic pass just in front of goal.
But the young striker missed from point-blank range, sending the ball crashing into the outside of the net with a right-footed shot.
The Mariners finally broke through when Angel Torres made the most of a brilliant reverse pass from Storm Roux in the 56th minute but it was not enough to get them back in the match.
Jackson had another run-in with Barreiro two minutes later when the referee denied a handball penalty.
Arguing the ball was blocked by Sky Blues debutant Hayden Matthews' arm, Jackson became visibly frustrated when Barreiro argued Matthews was in a natural position when he came into contact.
"You've got trust in the process ... but you see wrong decisions made all the time, even with VAR," Jackson said.
"I can't say anything more than I thought it was a penalty."
Sydney coach Ufuk Talay had his own troubles with the match officials after Nathan Amanatidis was barred from coming off the bench for Joe Lolley at 86 minutes.
"Jonathan (Barreiro) wanted to speed up the game," Talay said.
"If you feel like we're slowing the game down, you can have that time at the back end of the game."
