Melbourne Victory have moved up to fourth in the A-League after defeating Wellington Phoenix 3-0 at the Etihad Stadium Australia.
The defending champions began the match the brighter side and took the lead inside 10 minutes through Besart Berisha. The forward sidestepped a defender in the box before placing the ball into the far corner of the net.
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Phoenix almost equalised midway through the first half through Ben Sigmund, but his header was kept out by Danny Vukovic, who reacted quickly to palm the ball away.
Victory continued to enjoy the majority of possession through the first half but struggled to carve out meaningful chances, and it was their defender Carl Valeri who had to make a last-ditch tackle in the area to prevent Wellington from going through on goal.
They doubled their lead, though, 10 minutes into the second half. Kosta Barbarouses picked the ball up on the right-hand side of the penalty area and shot at goal from an acute angle, but the ball took a slight deflection which was enough to take it past Wellington goalkeeper Glen Moss at his near post.
Berisha made it three five minutes later and bagged his second of the night when he rounded Moss and managed to hook the ball into an empty net at full stretch, when it appeared that it was running away from him after he had been tripped by the Wellington stopper.
The game petered out in the final 20 minutes, with a powerful drive from Barbarouses in injury time that flew wide of Moss's post being the only meaningful chance of the closing stages.
Steven Toplis
