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After failing to win a game in the opening 14 rounds, the Heart rallied to win five consecutive matches and remain undefeated in almost two months.
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The Jets striker netted his 11th goal of the season to put him on top of the A-League goal scoring chart and more importantly keep the Jets within a point of the top six.
Jets coach Clayton Zane was full of praise for the young star insisting that the 20 year-old’s form could see him picked in Ange Postecoglou’s World Cup Socceroos squad.
“He has to be a bolter for Brazil, personally I would take that type of that player just to give him the experience because he’s going to be around in the national set up for some time,” he said.
“The boy never stops finishing at training, all he wants to do is hit the back of the net. He’s desperate to score goals.
“I think if he’s got a spot for a young player I’m sure he’s already got Taggart in mind as one of the players potentially he can take for experience.
“Based on that performance today, he could find himself on the plane to Brazil.”
Heart coach John van’t Schip admitted he was disappointed that his side’s winning streak had come to an end but he insisted he was more concerned by their lackluster performance.
“We’re still there, we’ve made it difficult for ourselves. It was already a lot more difficult a few weeks ago, so that’s why I said we should take it game by game,” he said.
“This of course is a disappointment but more because of the way that we played not because of the loss.
“The loss of course, everyone wants to win, but I’m also looking at the way that we played and I think we can do a lot better.”
The match was a stop-start affair in the first half as both teams lacked continuity in their passing and committed a number of fouls which stalled the momentum.
The Heart missed a number of chances in the first half through Iain Ramsay and Jonatan Germano and were made to pay in the second half as the Jets gradually wore the visitors down.
The poor playing surface at Hunter Stadium did not help the quality of the match and John Van’t Schip expressed his frustration in the aftermath.
“We couldn’t really play our game, the circumstances were not really good. There was a lot of wind in the first half and the pitch was not in good condition so that makes it difficult to play it on the ground,” he said.
“It made it difficult for us to really control the game, it was a game that was up and down which is not really what we like.”
Zane admitted it was not the Jets performance of the year but was relieved to have secured just his side’s third home win of the season to keep in touch with the top six.
“Yeah its huge, it’s great to overcome that hurdle of winning a home match again, I think that takes a little bit of pressure off us,” he said.
“We’re not home and hosed yet we’ve still got a lot of work to do because like I said it wasn’t a pretty performance but we can be a lot better at home and take a lot of confidence from that.
“We were desperate, credit to the boys we’re starting to show we can knick goals on the counter attack so we’re going to be a bit of a threat heading into this finals period I hope.”
Newcastle Jets: 1.Mark BIRIGHITTI (GK), 4.Kew JALIENS,5.Ben KANTAROVSKI, 6.Zenon CARAVELLA, 7.Andrew HOOLE, 8.Ruben ZADKOVICH (C), 9.Emile HESKEY, 11.Craig GOODWIN, 13.Joey GIBBS, 14.Josh MITCHELL, 15.Josh BRILLANTE, 21.Sam GALLAWAY, 20.Ben KENNEDY (GK), 22.Adam TAGGART, 23.David CARNEY, 24.Mitch OXBORROW
Melbourne Heart: 1.Andrew REDMAYNE (GK), 3.Robbie WIELAERT, 4.Orlando ENGELAAR, 6.Patrick GERHARDT, 7.Iain RAMSAY, 8.Massimo MURDOCCA, 10.Harry KEWELL (C), 13.Jonatan GERMANO, 15.David WILLIAMS, 16.Aziz BEHICH, 17.Jason HOFFMAN, 19.Benjamin GARRUCIO, 20.Tando VELAPHI (GK), 22.Nicholas KALMAR, 23.Mate DUGANDZIC, 24.Patrick KISNORBO