Perth Glory virtually secured their first A-League finals appearance and ended Central Coast’s chances with a 3-1 thrashing of the Mariners at ME Bank Stadium on Sunday night.

Soon-to-be-Mariner Daniel McBreen made sure his allegiances were clear by putting the Glory on the board inside the opening minute and added a second just 10 minutes later.

Perth had a third before half-time through 23-year-old Andrija Jukic and, while the Mariners worked back into the game and got a second half goal through Adam Kwasnik, they were never in the hunt.

The Glory were playing their third game in six days and it took a toll with goalkeeper Tando Velaphi (quad), captain Jacob Burns (hamstring) and striker Mile Sterjovski (back) joining Victor Sikora and Branko Jelic on the injury list.

But the win took the home side to fourth position, six points and 11 goals ahead of seventh-placed Brisbane Roar, with two games against Sydney FC and Brisbane to come.

The Mariners went into the match six points outside the four and their hopes evaporated as they slumped to seven points behind sixth-placed Newcastle.

Perth’s first goal came with just 45 seconds on the clock after a bad defensive pass from Central Coast.

McBreen gained possession, outmanoeuvred Chris Doig and found it all too easy to beat Danny Vukovic.

The Glory continued to press and were rewarded with another poor defensive effort from the Mariners.

This time Andrew Clark got to a long ball intended for Scott Neville but Neville got the better of their scrap far too easily and, with Clark grounded, coolly passed to an unchecked McBreen who once again had no trouble beating Vukovic.

Central Coast worked into the game but, against the run of play, Glory scored from a corner through Jukic’s header.

The Mariners weren’t about to give up and got on the board in the 50th minute following a cross from Brad Porter, header from Nik Mrdja and tap in from Kwasnik.

Glory coach Dave Mitchell was obviously delighted with his team’s start to get two goals in just over 10 minutes, but also with how they withstood the Mariners’ charge.

“That’s three (wins) on the trot now and it was a fantastic performance in the first half,” Mitchell said.

“In the second half we tried to contain them a little bit, but they scored and got a bit of wind in their sails.

“Once we changed it we were comfortable and did very well.”

Lawrie McKinna’s Mariners improved after the two-goal start they gave up, but he knows you can’t make basic errors like that.

“You can prepare all you want, you can have everyone looking good on the whiteboard but you can’t make basic mistakes like that,” McKinna said.

“We’ve gone from having the best defensive record in the league to hopping goals that are just not good enough.”

© AAP 2012

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