A VAR decision, after an 87th-minute hand-ball ruling, allowed Brisbane's Jay O'Shea to score from the spot - his third goal of the game - and break a 2-all deadlock.

Afterwards Stamatelopoulos, who scored his eighth goal of the season for Newcastle, said in a post-match interview: "I don't understand how that is a penalty.

"The referees came to us before the season started and told us that if the ball comes off any part of the body and then hits the hand, it's not a penalty."

Stanton, however, was candid about a result that left the Jets in 10^th position, five points adrift of the top six.

"It shows where we're at, and where we need to be ... in the end we didn't manage the game well and we paid the price," he said.

Asked about the penalty, Stanton said: "I haven't had a good look yet, so I don't know if there were any injustices. But in the end, you cost yourself the game. No one else does."

Stanton said his players were working hard at training and learning fast but many were still a work in progress.

"We need to mature as a team, we need to manage games better, and that comes through exposure and experience," he said.

Stanton was confident that if he could keep his young tyros together for "another six to 12 months", they would be a different propositon.

But he predicted a number of them were likely to "get tapped up" and move on.

"No-one is leaving in this [transfer] window," he said.

"They're here for the rest of the year, and then there are obviously decisions on who wants to stay and who wants to go ... if I have to start again, I'll start again."