Sutherland suffered their ninth defeat of the NPL 1 season with a 3-1 loss to Sydney Olympic on Sunday.
The Sharks led 1-0 at the Belmore Sports Ground through Tomohiro Kajiyama. The Japanese import scored his eighth goal in just 11 games from a Josh Da Silva cross.
But three goals in nine minutes after half-time from Yu Kuboki, Radovan Pavicevic and Jinya An saw Olympic secure the three points.
New Sutherland coach Grant Lee was disappointed with his side’s start to the second half but said his players were showing enough to suggest they could still turn their season around.
“The first half was really good, we deserved the lead,” Lee said.
“We came out into the second [half] and invited trouble and there was nine minutes of madness, all starting with the penalty which was completely avoidable.
“It’s by far a mental thing. We start living in the past and the doubt creeps in and we start feeling sorry for ourselves.
“There are some really nice things about the squad. We play some nice football and if we get a little tougher mentally we will get things back on track.”
The loss saw Sutherland slip to 11th, one point above bottom-placed Parramatta.
Sutherland travel to Cromer Park to take on Manly United in round 12 on Sunday.
