The defeat leaves the ninth-placed Reds' season all but over as they sit seven points outside the top six with four games to play.

“We made a silly mistake at a crucial moment in the game and we got punished for it and that’s seems to be the story of our season so far,” Kosmina said.

“We play well enough to win games, we get into good enough areas to finish the opposition off or make more of it and we’re not incisive enough and then we got to the other end of the park and somebody gets pulled out of shape or someone panics or doesn’t control the ball and you get punished for it.”

On how the Reds have found themselves in their current predicament, Kosmina referred to their inability to take any points from their past three home games as a key reason for the frustration that the players are feeling.

“It hurts and so it should, they’re playing well enough to win games,” Kosmina said.

“You look at last week (against Sydney), it hurt badly…and it’s the games at home – we could of finished Perth off early and we didn’t.

"We should’ve finished Wellington off and we didn’t and we should’ve beaten Sydney last week and we didn’t, and they’re the ones that have killed us.”

However, Kosmina was optimistic the team could finish the season off on a high, beginning Thursday when they host Perth at Hindmarsh Stadium before their 2012 AFC Champions League group stage campaign starts.

“We’ve got Perth on Thursday and I’m still confident we can win that game at home because we’re due a win at home just by the sheer law of averages," he said.

"Then we’re off to Uzbekistan, so maybe things will turn for us over there and then we can come back and beat Brisbane and win the last two games."