It’s been a pleasure Carlos

They waited until the penultimate round but Melbourne Victory put in their best performance with a 3-0 over Wellington Phoenix on Friday night at AAMI Park.

Much of the talk before the game was more on the player exits at seasons end rather than the upcoming fixture, with A-League superstar Carlos Hernandez the centre of the speculation. If it was to be Hernandez’s last game in front of his adoring Melbourne faithful then he was going to go out with a bang. His bullet like goal on 11 minutes will push to make the ‘Carlos Hernandez highlight reel top five’ which has accumulated more spectacular goals than any other A-League player.

Jim Magilton was very pleased with his second win in charge

Interim manager Jim Magilton has also shared plenty of the spotlight in the last week after it was reported the the Northern Irishman was set to sign on with the club. The two year deal is said to include a KPI of cleaning out some of the veteran Victory players which started with Tom Pondeljak during the week and possibly includes the names of Vargas, Kemp, Brebner, Allsopp, Solozarno, Luzardo, Fabio, Celeski and even best and fairest favourite Ante Covic.

Magilton would have been very pleased with the younger line-up he started on the park against an in-form Phoenix side. Marco Rojas started off well against his former club before being subbed off with a suspected broken jaw courtesy of former team-mate Manny Muscat. Rojas was due in the Oly Whites (yes that’s their name) camp tomorrow in a serious blow to the NZ team aiming to qualify for the London Olympics.

Isaka Cernak, who has worn his fair share of criticism from the fans, came on for Rojas and played possibly his best game for Victory and also managed to get his name on the score sheet.

Jeggo also got himself on list of goalscorers and has been one of the few positives for Melbourne this season. He put the icing on the cake in the 90th minute with a brilliantly struck long range goal to become Victory’s youngest ever goalscorer. Another youngster Julius Davies came on for Harry Kewell with ten minutes remaining and showed glimpses of the huge hype surrounding the former Bayern Munich academy player.

Tando Velaphi stood between the sticks for his first A-League game for Melbourne and kept a clean sheet. It’s a pleasing sign for the former Glory ‘keeper in what has been a frustrating year for him with injuries.

Seconds after the Jeggo goal star play-maker Carlos Hernandez was subbed off to a standing ovation as the much loved Johnny Warren Medalist thanked the crowd, hopefully not for the last time at AAMI Park.

For the Victory, they finish off their disastrous season next week in their least favorite place, Perth, while the Phoenix must rely on other results (including a Victory win over Perth) to host a home final. Wellington could drop as low as sixth if Heart and the Jets win both remaining games, which wouldn’t be ideal with the Phoenix’s historically poor record on Australian soil.