A goalless draw made it four games without defeat for Kosmina's men although their evening was soured somewhat by the late dismissal of substitute Mitchell Prentice.

However, there was the plus of seeing marquee striker John Aloisi get his first start and skipper Tony Popovic slotting back in after injury.

The Sydney FC coach said: "It is always good to come here and get something.

"But having said that I think we dropped our intensity in the second half.

"But it was another game we didn’t concede and we played some really good stuff and came away with a point. So from a football progression point of view, I was happy."

Both Kosmina and Jets coach Gary van Egmond indicated it was an intense but 'fair' battle.

"The game wasn't spiteful at all," said Kosmina.

"His (Prentice's) first yellow I think he was a bit unlucky, to be honest and the second one I think he was just naïve because he was committed to winning the ball."

And I think sometimes the referees have to look at the intention side of things.

"I have just seen the ref's list and everyone got booked from unsporting-like behaviour. So does that mean trying to tackle is now 'unsporting' in the game? I don't know. I am confused. I don't know what the rules are anymore."

"Adam Griffiths made more of than happened and I wonder if it was suggested he give the second yellow by the Newcastle players … and there was a guy who got booked for that last week from Wellington. I think we have to have a look at what is happening out there. Having said that, Mitch has to realise that if he goes in with the studs up he is going to get booked for that.

Van Egmond said he thought the incident between Aloisi and Piorkowski looked fairly 'innocuous' and revealed that Aloisi had come to the Newcastle dressing room after the match to apologise for the clash and to check up on the welfare of the Newcastle defender, who was only signed to the club on a short-term injury contract late this week. Kosmina agreed that the incident was worse than it looked.

"That (the elbow to Piorkowski) was right in front of us and I was surprised when Daniel came off with a bleeding mouth. I thought Daniel had just gone into his shoulder, I didn't know it was an elbow. Johnny is a gentleman – I don't think he would deliberately go out there and hurt someone."