Melbourne Victory have laid down another symbolic marker of their revival by stunning Melbourne City 3-0 and exorcising the demons of their recent A-League Men derby past.
Running away with the game in the opening 30 minutes thanks to a goal from Jake Brimmer and a brace from Marco Rojas, Saturday marked the first time Victory had tasted success in the derby in 840 days.
In the intervening period, Victory sunk to the lowest of lows while City reached the highest of highs, supplanting their rivals at the Melbourne ALM summit and delivering 6-0 and 7-0 humblings in 2020-21.
But on Saturday, that pain was forgotten as Victory ran out rampant, deserved winners.
(Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)
“Derby games are special,” said Victory coach Tony Popovic.
“You only get three points, we understand that, but we haven’t had a win against Melbourne City for a while.
“We had two draws (this season), we feel we’ve improved in each game and today we improved again.
“We deserved to win.”
City controlled possession throughout the game and improved in the second stanza but Victory consistently created better chances after carefully picking their moments to counter and press.
City ended up outshot 17 to five and had just two efforts on target for the whole contest.
“I thought we were poor,” said City coach Patrick Kisnorbo.
“It was disappointing, disappointing.
“You try coming back, down 3-0 at the second half, it’s very difficult against a good team.”
Fittingly, given that a derby win represents something of a blast from the past for Victory, their evening was highlighted by a vintage performance from Rojas.
(Graham Denholm/Getty Images)
Following Brimmer’s fifth-minute penalty, the Kiwi attacker sent Tom Glover’s attempt to clear a free kick straight back over his head from range in the 14th minute and grabbed his brace in the 27th minute with a sweetly struck effort from the edge of the penalty area.
“The last three or four games he’s been so good,” Popovic said of Rojas.
“You can see that the speed and power is returning. The quality was always there but now he’s feeling really good physically and he’s able to show the talent he’s always had.”
Four points back of second-placed Western United with a game in hand, Victory host Brisbane Roar next Tuesday.
City remain eight points clear atop the table ahead of two weeks of Asian Champions League commitments but will sweat on the health of midfielder Florin Berenguer after Kisnorbo confirmed the Frenchman had suffered a hamstring injury.
Elsewhere in the A-League Men on Saturday, an Adam Le Fondre hat trick has helped strengthen Sydney FC’s bid for a finals spot in a 5-0 win over the Central Coast Mariners.
Western Sydney boss Mark Rudan says his side will rally round goalkeeper Daniel Margush after his moment of madness handed the Brisbane Roar a 1-1 draw and dealt the Wanderers’ finals push a big blow.
And Western United are looking to regroup quickly after their premiership aspirations suffered a serious blow in a 4-1 loss to Wellington Phoenix in Ballarat.
Josh
Guest
Phenomenal match, utterly brilliant. That's the A League I know and love.
Para+Ten ISUZU Subway support Australian Football
Roar Rookie
Great game, good turn-out, fantastic atmosphere. But so little reporting of the event on the other commercial networks. If that continues; the APL + CBS have to follow up with a midday Sunday discussion show on TEN, to compete with the other codes for visibility, and presence.
Coastyboi
Guest
Let’s just say, the turn out, was a turn on.
NSD + Transfer Fees
Guest
Great turn out. Almost 20,000 fans.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
they seem to be doing that now on keepup, the problem is getting through all the foreign content . This beauty of an article with videos, the highlight for me is Rawlins is bending I think to tie his shoelace, after a through ball over the top has been hit. Now that is peak A-league. Lachman day dreaming walk up field against Mikeltadze was put in the shadow by that. https://keepup.com.au/news/live-jets-host-glory-in-alm
NoMates
Roar Rookie
The underrated Rojas with a double, league needs more Kiwis in it.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Correct. I know the AFL have a dedicated media department that produces content that can be fed to other organisations. The FA and APL need to employ journalists for the sole purpose of producing Football content. Full. Stop.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
The ALs should use the money they got from their new equity partner and invest it in establishing an informative new football site.
fabian gulino
Roar Rookie
not after that performance by city last night,they will get slaughted by other teams in the finals.
GARRY
Guest
The games are played in advance or April due to the Asian Cup, common sense... City is still the team to beat due to their efficiednt press and goal scorers but yes..like all teams.. have defensive frailities. Jamieson has always only been a workhorse..& I see Rostyn Griiths as a better defender than Nunez
GARRY
Guest
I visit the roar blog these days because of its football coverage..not much in the smh or ABC ..look at the ABC News sports section today..4 AFL articles on main page, 1 EPL BUT not one A League story - great games, big sydney & Melb. interest but no coverage
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
City have had a charmed life recently with the recent opposition doing their mysterious off performance whenever they have played them. Aiden Oneill he has been a lot better than Metcalfe this year, and Berenguer this has been by far his best year. I think they have some slower players and can be vulnerable, not convinced by Erikson as a right back and Jameison is way slower than Boss. Victory have been the most consistent team effort wise, they dont concede early because they do expend a lot of energy early, they are then vulnerable at the end of matches. Their main problem has been Margiotta being useless and lack of finishing, Dagastino complements their pressing because he has that speed to get to the bad back pass, how many goals and a penalty has he made off opposition back passes. MV also by winning the FFA cup , playing extra matches didnt do them any good in that period or CCM either,and then if you add in the foolish send offs from Popovic getting them to be overly aggressive that was something like 8 points. The question then is what is going in the A-league, well who knows, we saw Sydney FC join the weird performance club with Amini putting in a marquee performance of defensive randomness against City mid week. Then it was like a repeat of Macarthurs triple sub , take off other players . In some cases you have had teams that had the better of the game up until a point losing by big margins because they didnt take their chances then conceeded and then pushed too far forward and got caught on the counter. That happened with CCM against Sydney. Brisbane the mystery with them is why do they lack energy get a player sent off and then can suddenly run their heads off. Parsons was the one who got them back in the game and looked quite energetic when he came on yet we haven;t seen him for ages. Western United they dont seem interested in winning the title , their win recently against Roar was because of a brain snap by the Roar keeper after a weird goal conceeded by Young where he held onto the ball and was seemingly caught unawares by Hingert. I dont get why Sydney are playing all these matches before heading off to the ACL, instead of giving the team a rest they are packing more matches in its crazy.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
In the Round 22 tips article I commented: "It’s sad that it’s come to this. This website provides live scores for the AFL, League and Rugby but not for Football. Just take a look across the various sports. Is it time to abandon The Roar website? Could somebody associated with this website explain what’s going on, please." Football has dropped off the radar compared to the other major Aussie sports. Oh well, sigh.
Chopper
Roar Rookie
Pretty poor reporting on all A League games this season.