This has shades of the ‘Heist in the Hunter’. Real A-League heads will know, but for the rest of you, I’m referring was the 2018 A-League grand final, when Newcastle Jets hosted Melbourne Victory - and everyone wanted the Jets to win, because they’d been terrible for a long time and nobody expected them to be as good as they were that season. It was a really nice story.
Victory, however, crashed the party, and an extremely unfortunately timed VAR malfunction meant they squeaked out a 1-0 win with a goal that should not have counted. Victory’s goal tonight was very much legal, but there’s still the same vibe of the bad guys from south of the border coming up to regional NSW and killing the fairytale. Central Coast Mariners 0-1 Melbourne Victory, 68 minutes Weird vibe at Industree Group Stadium right now.
Everyone’s a bit nervous, except for the four bays of Victory fans who are absolutely fired up, jumping up and down and having the time of their lives. It’s really hard to see where the Mariners are going to get a goal from. They’ve been firing blanks all night in the final third and whatever they’re throwing at Victory’s defence is being dealt with quite easily.
Mark Jackson needs to shake things up because what they’re doing at the moment is not working. Central Coast Mariners 0-1 Melbourne Victory, 64 minutes A sweeping attacking move by the Mariners ends with Christian Theoharous taking a ping from a difficult angle on the left - the ball goes high .