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Sydney FC 2 Perth Glory 4 Greg Prichard

SYDNEY'S season will now come down to a supreme test of character against Central Coast and coach John Kosmina - while disappointed with the nature of Saturday night's loss - is not unhappy that his team is now under enormous pressure to show what they have got against the side that leads the competition.

"It will be a test of our character," Kosmina said yesterday of the game against the Mariners at Central Coast Stadium on Saturday. "And that's what you want in football."

Asked how he thought his players would respond to the challenge of playing the league leaders a week after losing to the bottom-placed Glory, Kosmina replied: "I think they will dust themselves off and get themselves up for the game. I think the loss to Perth will be a wake-up call for us. We had been sailing along fairly comfortably, but sometimes it's hard to play against the bottom team and do as well as you believe you should do. Teams in their [Perth's] position have nothing to lose in a game like that and they were a bit of an unknown quantity as well, with the changes that were forced to their side.

"The best teams in the world sometimes lose to the bottom sides and no one can explain it. It's part of football. Sometimes, you need a psychological cue to spark you into life and this should be the cue for us. It has put our backs to the wall for the game against the Mariners, and if we get beaten by what turns out to be a better side, then, so be it. But I know we're good enough to do something against them and the players have to believe that as well."

The defeat was Sydney's first since Kosmina took over from the sacked Branko Culina mid-season - having won three and drawn three until Saturday. A couple of those draws would have been wins had Sydney done a better job of taking their chances in front of goal. Sooner or later Sydney were going to pay the price for their low conversion rate, and that finally happened against Perth.

"It was an easily winnable game for us and we were in control of the situation while it was 0-0," Kosmina said. "But then Perth scored two quick goals against the run of play and we had to chase the game all night after that. We had built momentum early on and sometimes, when you do that, you end up punishing the other team. But if you don't get the goals you can end up getting punished yourself.

"There are times when you just don't do a good job of taking your chances, but on this occasion I think it was more bad luck than anything that we didn't get to the lead before Perth did. Alex [Brosque], in particular, was unlucky with a couple of shots. But missed opportunities eventually come back to bite you and we gave away goals to Perth through poor passing and poor decision-making. Football is a game that's played 90 per cent in the head and in that area we weren't as good as we should have been on this occasion."