Adelaide United has maintained its unbeaten start to the Hyundai A-League season with an incident-packed 2-1 win over Perth Glory at Members Equity Stadium.
Adelaide's Chinese import Qu Shengqing spoiled the Perth party with his goal, just moments after arriving as a second-half substitute, maintaining United's place atop the early season ladder.
Heading into the clash, Adelaide had yet to concede a goal in the Hyundai A-League, and also boasted the only unbeaten record in the competition.
However, it was Glory who started like table-toppers, with Hiroyuki Ishida seeing a blistering drive palmed around the post and Brian Deane almost connecting with a trademark header inside a first quarter hour.
After much good build up, it was mostly good luck that led to Perth's opener, with Bobby Despotovski again proving an instinct for goal cannot be dulled by age.
With the striker hopefully chasing a long ball, Adelaide goalkeeper Daniel Beltrame was always favourite, but after winning the race Beltrame's attempted clearance smacked into defender Michael Valkanis, who deflected the ball into his own goal, putting the home side up after 21 minutes.
Having shown nothing up front, Adelaide levelled in stylish fashion just 11 minutes later when Ross Aloisi latched on to a Carl Veart header and lashed home a volley from 25 metres.
Within five minutes of the restart, Despotovski twice came close to breaking the deadlock, first with a swerving free kick, then a drive from outside the box.
And Glory were made to pay for their profligacy when on 65 minutes, Matthew Kemp rolled a pass into Qu's path, and the import's clinical finish showed exactly why he has won 30 international caps.
The drama was not over, as Beltrame's night ended early with more than 20 minutes left to play when he was sent off by referee Matthew Breeze for a needless shove on Scott Miller.
But despite the numerical advantage Glory could not force the equaliser, and United held on to give Adelaide's sporting fraternity something to smile about.
Perth has a trip to Auckland to face the New Zealand Knights ahead next Thursday while Adelaide is it home in round five against the Central Coast Mariners in a top-of-the-table clash on Sunday week.