Phoenix rise from ashes of defeat to steal draw

Brisbane Roar 2-2 Wellington Phoenix

By Alyce Collett 3/1/2026

Above: Samba (front) chases the ball for Wellington in front of Ava Piazza (back) Photo: via the A-Leagues

The Wellington Phoenix have stolen a draw from the clutches of defeat, with a dramatic late goal seeing them draw two goals all with the Brisbane Roar. In the first half a goal to Manaia Elliot was cancelled out by goals from Ashlyn Miller and Ava Piazza and Brisbane looked like they were going to get back on the winners list, before a goal at the death from Brooke Nunn broke Roar hearts.

It was Brisbane initially with more of the attacking play, but it was not long before Wellington started to rack up some dangerous chances of their own.

Brooke Nunn was proving to be an important piece of the puzzle for the visitors early, doing a lot of the grunt work out on the right wing to generate attacking momentum for the Phoenix. She was well assisted by the likes of Pia Vlok.

Meanwhile for Brisbane Sharn Freier and Bente Jansen did occasionally get into promising positions, but did not have enough support around them to make the most of the opportunities.

It did not take Wellington even 15 minutes to score the opening goal, when Elliott pickpocketed Momo Hayashi and let a shot rip from about halfway between the 18 yard box and the halfway line.

However the Roar took barely two minutes to respond, when Hayashi found Freier out wide, who crossed to Miller directly in front, who scored truly for her first ever A-League Women’s goal.

Miller’s equaliser seemed to spark some energy in the Roar, with the home side taking control of the attacking play. Miller herself also showed that she is a good player in an attacking role, despite the defensive role she has been playing so far this season.

Brisbane’s second goal of the first half came about 20 minutes after the equaliser after Piazza also let a shot rip from outside the box, and with it came the full stop on the complete 180 of the trajectory of the game.

Interestingly, before Wellington’s goal the Phoenix’s share of possession was about six percent higher than Brisbane’s. By the time half time rolled around, Brisbane was leading that stat by about three percent.

Early in the second half Wellington almost caught Chloe Lincoln out of position and re equalised, but a well placed Brisbane defensive line meant that the goal front was still well covered.

Wellington continued to keep up the attacking momentum and went within millimetres of an equaliser of their own on multiple occassions, but no matter how hard they tried they just could not get the ball past the Brisbane defence and into the back of the net.

The Brisbane defensive structure was the saviour for the Roar for much of the second half as the Phoenix kept attacking hard. The Roar had plenty of numbers back and positioned well as to not get in each other’s way, and although this meant they could not really be much of an attacking threat Brisbane would not have complained as they still held the all important lead. Even players like Freier were hanging back in defence, which was perhaps a sign of how the Roar wanted to approach the second half.

Things went from bad to worse for Wellington with about 10 minutes to go when Samba landed heavily after a goal line scramble, and had to be helped off to the field and to the bench and was in some obvious pain.

However, just as all hope seemed lost for the Phoenix, Nunn stepped up with about 30 seconds to go and let a shot rip from distance that just scraped under the bar to rescue a point for the visitors.

BRISBANE ROAR (4-1-4-1): Lincoln, Medwin, L.Varley, Seidl, Piazzi, Hayashi, Woods, Freier, Miller, Brown, Jansson. Substitutes: Franco, Stephenson, Cuthbert, Studer. Meyers,
Kinsella.

Scorers: Miller 17’, Piazza 34’

WELLINGTON PHOENIX (4-4-2): Esson, Barry, Walker, Jale, Samba, Elliott, van der Meer, Main, Nunn, Vlok, Pijnenburg. Substitutes: Danieli, León, D.Brazendale, Wall, Benson, Bartlett.

Goals: Elliott 15’, Nunn 90+8’

Referee: Lara Lee.

Attendance: 4,494.

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