A-League Round 7 is done and dusted and some interesting results were yet again provided. Friday night saw the Grand Final re-match between runners-up Adelaide United and champions Melbourne Victory at Hindmarsh Stadium.
The visiting Victory kept up their domination of the Reds in recent times, recording a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Nicky Ward and Grant Brebner.
The three points enabled the Victory to leapfrog Adelaide on the table into sixth position.
Adelaide United: 0 Melbourne Victory: 2 (Nicky Ward '6, Grant Brebner '89)
Venue: Hindmarsh Stadium Crowd: 15,038 Yellow cards:Ade - Travis Dodd '80 Mel - Kevin Muscat '23, Leigh Broxham '42, Glen Moss '86
On Saturday, Central Coast Mariners produced arguably the performances of the season so far by trouncing league leaders Gold Coast United.
The Mariners continued their great start to the season, taking all before them and proving many critics wrong.
English import Nicky Travis was on the scoresheet as was Matt Simon and John Hutchinson whilst tjhings in the United camp did not go according to plan as star striker Shane Smeltz received two cautions to be sent from the pitch in the second half.
Central Coast Mariners: 3 (Nicky Travis '26, Matt Simon '54, John Hutchinson '70) Gold Coast United: 0
Venue: Bluetongue Stadium Crowd: 7,943 Yellow cards:CCM - Nicky Travis '16, Dean Heffernan '62 GCU - Shane Smeltz '8, '68, Michael Thwaite '83 Red cards:GCU - Shane Smeltz '68
The first of a Sunday triple header was a 1-1 draw between Wellington Phoenix and North Queensland Fury.
The Fury were lucky to escape with a point after allowing the home side to lead for all but six minutes of the match before equalising deep into stoppage time through Chris Grossman.
Wellington Phoenix: 1 (Leo Bertos '6) North Queensland Fury: 1 (Chris Grossman '90+4)
Venue: Westpac Stadium Crowd: 9,713 Yellow cards:Wel - Andrew Durante '27, Leo Bertos '89 NQF - Daniel McBreen '32, Shane Stefanutto '90+1.
Sydney FC joined Gold Coast United on 13 points at the summit of the A-League table by accounting for the Newcastle Jets 2-1 at the Sydney Football Stadium.
A second-half spot-kick from Steve Corica wrapped up the points for the Sky Blues after Mark Bridge opened the scoring with a brilliant finish before Jets skipper Matt Thompson leveled just after the half-hour mark.
Sydney FC: 2 (Mark Bridge '25, Steve Corica (p) '55) Newcastle Jets: 1 (Matt Thompson '36)
Venue:Sydney Football Stadium Crowd: 10,357 Yellow cards:Syd - Sung Hwan Byun '90 New - Sasho Petrovski '37, Ben Kennedy '54, Angelo Costanzo '90 Red cards:New - Tarek Elrich '89
To round out the weekend's action, Perth Glory notched up their first win on the road for the season by defeating Brisbane Roar 4-2.
The Roar produced a dismal performance defensively to let the Glory in on four occasions and paid the ultimate price by losing their spot in the top three, dropping to fifth.
Brisbane Roar: 2 (Henrique '50, Chris Coyne (og) '64) Perth Glory: 4 (Josh McCloughan (og) '1, Wayne Srhoj '41, Branko Jelic '61, Adriano Pellegrino '75)
Venue: Suncorp Stadium Crowd: 7,367 Yellow cards:Bri - Henrique '42, David Dodd '74 Per - Jacob Burns '15, Wayne Srhoj '66, Andy Todd '90+2
