Photo: Adrian Caceres...came on as a late substitute for Wellington [PlessPix]
Wellington Phoenix have qualified for a home match in the A-League finals by beating Central Coast Mariners 3-0 at WestPac Stadium in Wellington this afternoon.
The victory cemented fourth spot for the Phoenix, who delighted the home crowd of 14,327.
Tim Brown headed the Phoenix in front from 6 metres after an excellent pass by Vince Lia had put Manny Muscat away on the right and Muscat crossed accurately from the byline.
It was Brown’s seventh goal of the season.
Two goals in the final 11 minutes by Paul Ifill destroyed the visitors.
In the 79th minute, Phoenix stole the ball following a sloppy Mariners free-kick and attacked down the right.
Chris Greenacre’s shot took a deflection and fell perfectly for Ifill, who swept the ball into an empty net to make it 2-0.
A minute later, Ifill made it 3-0 by collecting his 12th goal of the season.
He ran onto a clever lobbed free-kick on the left and cut inside, where he beat a defender before smashing his shot past Danny Vukovic and inside the far post.
The Mariners, who remain seventh, were very disappointing and Phoenix keeper Liam Reddy had very little to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment