Adelaide United and Western Sydney fought out an eventful 2-2 draw at Hindmarsh, with Jordan Elsey's red card and a supposed lack of consistency in refereeing decisions the major talking point.

Oriol Riera drew first blood after an ebbing and flowing first half, slotting away the rebound after Paul Izzo saved his penalty. 

Nikola Mileusnic cooly struck back twice after the break as the Reds reclaimed their dominance, but after Jordan Elsey was controversially red carded for catching Riera with his arm while jumping, Bruce Kamau equalised for the Wanderers within minutes.

Western Sydney then attempted to impress their numerical advantage to little avail, Paul Izzo more than capable of catching the repetitive catapults aimed at Riera. 

As for both the penalty and red card his side suffered, Adelaide's exhausted-looking Michael Jakobsen was controlling his displeasure.

"We need the line to be the same every week," he said. "Last week we had the exact same situation and we didn't get a penalty.

"What, you can't jump with your arms? But if this is the line, he'll be aware next time."

"We want to win every game even though we were one man less, so I'm really happy with the effort after we went down to 10 men.

"The second half was a good result, we showed the people that come here every game that we really want it."

Western Sydney's own towering centreback, Patrick Ziegler, was conversely unimpressed with his side's efforts.

"I feel my knees, but today we were justified," Ziegler said. "We started very bad and in the end we didn't do enough with the extra man, but it's still a good result. We didn't place enough pressure, it was a very bad second half."

Despite being born and raised in Germany, Ziegler's father is an Adelaide native, meaning there was an element of homecoming to Ziegler's appearance.

"My dad is a big Adelaide fan, doesn't matter which sport, but I think he was cheering for me today," he laughed.