Captain Apostolos Stamatelopoulos rescued a late point for Newcastle as they came back twice for a 2-2 ALM home draw with Macarthur, after counterpart Ulises Davila took his finals-chasing side to the verge of victory.
Stamatelopoulos's 89th minute spot kick at McDonald Jones Stadium was his 14th goal of the season, giving him the outright lead in the Golden Boot race.
Newcastle created more chances in the early stages of each half but couldn’t capitalise against a Bulls side coming off a gruelling extra time AFC Cup ASEAN zonal final defeat by Central Coast on Thursday.
Macarthur’s point moved them to fourth, a point above Western Sydney, who have a game in hand.
The Jets' finals hopes took a hit as they remained 11th, eight points behind sixth-placed Sydney and without a win in five games.
Two pieces of magic from inspirational captain Ulises Davila looked to have set up a win for the Bulls.
The Mexican riffled a shot in from the edge of the area in the 69th minute to trigger a late goal rush.
Archie Goodwin equalised within 90 second when he cooly converted an accurate cross from fellow substitute Daniel Wilmering, but the Jets restored their lead when a superb cross from Davila set up Valere Germain’s 11th goal of the season in the 81st minute.
But Macarthur couldn’t hold on, with Stamatelopoulos sending Bulls keeper Filip Kurto the wrong way from the spot after substitute Charles M’Mombwa grabbed the shirt of the outstanding Lucas Mauragis.
“When I first saw it, to be honest I thought the foul started outside the box and I thought that was where it was going to be; it would’ve been a free kick,” Bulls coach Mile Sterjovski told Paramount Plus.
“But the referee chose something else and we have to respect that and deal with it.
“I thought we did enough to win the game. They looked a little tired but I thought they put in a great shift today considering the scheduling we’ve had.”
Newcastle had the first five shots, with Trent Buhagiar and Callum Timmins drawing saves from Kurto, and Buhagiar having another two opportunities.
The Jets had five more shots over the course of the game, though each side had five attempts on target.
Macarthur’s most dangerous threat In the first half was centre back Tomislav Uskok who, from two corners, headed one straight at goalkeeper Ryan Scott and put another one wide, while speedster Jed Drew had a shot deflected onto a post.
Stamatelopoulos came close in the last couple of minutes of the first half, firing a strong shot just off target and glancing a header narrowly wide.
“The fightback is great. I think it shows good character, resilience and things like that,” Jets coach Robbie Stanton said.
“But I think you have to take the initiative if you want to win games and I think we had chances, but we really didn’t capitalise on those chances and that's the difference.”
