With about 20 minutes left on the clock some of the lights went out at McDonald Jones Stadium as the Newcastle Jets fell to their third straight loss.

Fans reacted by turning on their mobile phone torches but boss Ernie Merrick was more interested in shining a light on another poor performance.

Newcastle are secure in second, and assured of a home final, but Merrick told Fox Sports: "Well if we play that type of football we’re not going to do very well in the semi-final.

"Hopefully it’s a wake-up call but it was a very poor performance all around."

A penalty by Diego Castro (9') and a tap-in from Adam Taggart (27') gave the finals-chasing Perth Glory a crucial win but left Merrick with a huge problem to solve.

A team that couldn't stop scoring in the first 24 rounds of the season has now suffered back-to-back shutouts and coughed up 10 goals in the past three matches.

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Key figures are missing at both ends of the park, with captain centre back Nigel Boogaard injured and striker Andrew Nabbout snapped up by Urawa Red Diamonds. Fullback Daniel Georgievski was suspended for the clash. 

Merrick was quick to point the finger at a lack of on-field leadership and didn't pull his punches.

"It was one of those games that was all about midfield battles – there wasn’t a lot of good quality shots at either end," he said.

"We might have one good shot and that was about it. They had a couple but once again we gave away a penalty which I didn’t think was a penalty.

“Could be motivation, could be overtraining, it could be trying too hard, lack of leaders on the field – it could be a number of things.

“We’ll work at it at training, that’s all we can do and lift our spirits. It’s mental, not physical. It’s a mental issue here and we don’t have enough on-field leaders that are doing their job.”

The Jets boss said the team needed to regain its positivity “or we can forget about doing well in the semi-final.

“Roy (O’Donovan) didn’t get hardly any service at all,” Merrick said of the Irish striker who was seen kicking advertising signage in frustration.

“We kept going wide and the crosses weren’t high quality – a couple of good ones at the end – but not enough people wanted to get in the box and score goals.”

Merrick said Wayne Brown, who lasted only a few minutes before succumbing to a lingering calf injury, could be out for the rest of the season/finals.

Meanwhile Ronny Vargas who is returning from a lengthy layoff suffered a groin strain.

“I don’t think it’s too bad – we just took him off to be safe because we want him in the semi-final," Merrick said.