Appiah Kubi's brace not enough to save the Central Coast Mariners

New Zealand-born of Ghanaian descent Kwabena Appiah-Kubi scored twice for Central Coast Mariners in their 3-2 loss to Blacktown City FC in the FFA Cup.

It's the second year in a row that the Mariners have been bundled out by state league opposition, after their 2016 round-of-32 loss to Green Gully

But Mariners head coach Paul Okon remained upbeat after Wednesday night's loss.

'I thought we were excellent tonight,' Okon said. 'They had a plan to sit back and take whatever chances came their way from us losing the ball trying to force things. It was made a bit more difficult going a goal down after four minutes that we should never concede.'

The unfamiliar synthetic surface at Lilys Football Centre was always going to prove a challenging task for the Mariners, and it showed early on. The A-League side was 2-0 down after 17 minutes, with the opener the first of two goals for Central Coast junior Joey Gibbs.

Heading to the sheds at halftime down 2-1, the Mariners were right on top but struggled to finish chances off.

Conversely, Blacktown City converted their three chances.

'The positive thing for us, is that there's a few gears we can step things up, I thought our movement was excellent, we created a number of chances and certainly should have scored more goals,' Okon said.

'The disappointing thing is that we gave away three cheap goals and we're now out of the cup.'