A-League Men, 2023: Refs' boss admits Jets young gun Clayton Taylor robbed of hat-trick

Football Australia referees' boss Nathan McGill told the Jets on Tuesday that the Video Assisted Referee's [VAR] decision to rule out Taylor's header in the 69^th minute of the Jets' 5-3 loss to Victory for offside in the lead-up was wrong.

Trent Buhagiar fluffed a shot and then went to play a pass. However, Victory defender Stefan Negro was first to make contact and the ball flew to Apostolos Stamatelopoulos who delivered a cross to Taylor to nod into the goal.

Stamatelopoulos was in front of the last defender. The assistant referee raised his flag for offside.

However, broadcast replays showed clearly that Negro had played the ball, therefore putting Stamatelopoulos on side.

Match commentators were unanimous that the goal should have stood.

However, after nearly three minutes, VAR Lara Lee upheld the offside decision.

The goal would have been Taylor's second. Five minutes later he struck again, turning past two defenders and stroking a shot into the right corner.

Riley McGree was aged 19 and 193 days when he scored a hat-trick for the Jets in an 8-2 thumping of the Mariners on April 14, 2018.

Taylor would have been second on the list at 19 years and 243 days, had the VAR not erred.

"We sought clarification on the VAR decision and Football Australia referee boss Nathan McGill, after reviewing it, confirmed that the goal should have been awarded," Jets executive chairman Shane Mattiske said.

"I feel for Clayton, he should have had a hat-trick in only his second A-League game."

Had the goal been awarded, the Jets would have trailed Victory 5-4 with 15 minutes to play.

"You never know, " Mattiske said. "We were certainly very strong in the second half. Pressure can do funny things to teams."

Jets coach Rob Stanton said in the post-match press conference that he believed the goal should have been awarded but he respected the decision of the referee.

However, he was critical of the time it took the VAR to rule on a host of decisions.

A-League officials are understood to be working with Football Australia on ways to improve the VAR process. One option is for each decision to be explained by the on-field referee.

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Meanwhile, Melbourne City have ruthlessly sacked coach Rado Vidosic just two games into the A-League Men season, installing Aurelio Vidmar as caretaker in his place.

Vidosic paid the price for losing the first two games of the new campaign, headlined by a disastrous 6-0 hammering at Adelaide United on Sunday.

The 62-year-old guided City to the premiership last season but oversaw a 6-1 thrashing by Central Coast Mariners in the grand final.

City announced in a statement on Wednesday that former Socceroos captain Vidmar would take the reins until the end of the current campaign.