The home side started the stronger in front of a bumper home crowd of 14,573 inside Hindmarsh Stadium, but despite having the lion’s share of possession were unable to create many clear cut chances in front of goal.
The first half chance of the game came from Harry Kewell’s low free kick, which passed though a gap in the wall and looked to be headed for the bottom corner of the goal before Cassio intervened with the vital clearance.
Victory opted to play Kewell up front in a lone striker role, with Carlos Hernandez in behind and Archie Thompson out wide on the left. The tactic looked to backfire, however, as Kewell suffered from a lack of decent service and Thompson struggled to get into the game at all.
Hernandez was losing the battle of the play-makers to the impressive Dario Vidosic, who was at the heart of everything the Reds did in the first half. The Costa Rican did however show the class he possesses with a clever back-heel to set Marco Rojas into the area, but unfortunately for Melbourne when the ball broke to Kewell he could only scuff his shot into the turf.
Adelaide’s best chance of the first half came from a Vidosic corner as Jon McKain’s header back across Ante Covic saw the former Socceroo produce an impressive one-handed save to deny the Reds’ skipper.
The first goal of the game came out of nothing, as Melbourne right back Fabio gifted the hosts the lead when he inexplicably over hit a square ball across the backline which left Leigh Broxham scrambling and allowed Sergio Van Dijk to fire home a low shot inside the near post.
Things went from bad to worse for the visitors soon afterwards, as captain Adrian Leijer was shown a second yellow card for a lazy tug-back of Vidosic’s shirt on the edge of the area. The red card just added to the Victory’s frustrations on a night when tensions were already running high following a string of inconsistent decisions from referee Ben Williams.
Andwele Slory then should have doubled the home side’s advantage, but after Van Dijk’s knock-down he could only side-foot weakly at Covic from six yards.
The Dutch import looked to have atoned for his error when he played in Van Dijk for his second minutes later, only for the striker’s first time curling effort to come back off the crossbar.
For all their dominance, their inability to find a second goal meant that Adelaide were forced to see out a nervy final 10 minutes, including a Carlos Hernandez shot which narrowly crept over the ‘bar, before securing their first win of the new season.
The Football Sack Player of the Year points:
3. Dario Vidosic
2. Milan Susak
1. Sergio Van Dijk
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