Sydney FC extinguished the faint hopes Wellington Phoenix held of making the Hyundai A-League play-offs in their maiden season at Westpac Stadium on 4 January, securing themselves a top-four spot in the process after netting twice in four minutes late in the piece to triumph 2-0.
The visitors were good value for their victory, and were denied victory by a larger margin when Wellington goalkeeper Glen Moss saved Ufuk Talay's penalty just ninety seconds into the second half, after Robbie Middleby's cross struck Richard Johnson's hand in the area.
Referee Ben Williams - no stranger to controversy when refereeing Phoenix fixtures - awarded a harsh penalty, but justice was served by Moss' save, the ?keeper diving to his left to deny a player who shouldn't have been on the park.
The official had booked, in the 26th minute, the man who was to set up both Sydney's goals, yet he bottled the chance to send off Talay nine minutes later after the midfielder crudely curtailed Felipe Campos' fancy footwork in agricultural fashion right in front of the referee. One wonders how the official would have reacted had a single Wellington player been the offender on both occasions - with the degree of integrity befitting the role, one hopes.
Yet it wasn't really a surprise, come stoppage time, when Williams could hardly wield his red card quickly enough after Talay, ironically, was felled by an ill-timed tackle from Ross Aloisi, an action which may, sadly, prove to be the substitute?s last in A-League football, such are his ongoing injury concerns in the twilight years of his career.
The veteran's pending life far from the fields of battle was reflected in the first twenty minutes of this encounter, a spell in which Wellington's second-highest home crowd of the season - 14,288 - provided far more entertainment and energy in their enthusiastic serenades than was witnessed on the park, where defensive parsimony was well in evidence.
That all changed in the twentieth minute, the game bursting into life after Felipe fired the game's first shot in anger at Clint Bolton. Sydney's response was instant, with both Brendon Santalab - a diving header - and Terry McFlynn - a deflected twenty-five yarder - warming the gloves of the hitherto untested Moss.
Cue a Phoenix flurry, with Tony Lochhead and Campos combining to create a challenging headed opportunity for Vaughan Coveny - the veteran campaigner just couldn't climb high enough to generate genuine power in his attempt to break the deadlock.
Bolton grabbed the ball greedily, something replicated at the other end of the park seconds later as Santalab foundered under the challenge of Richard Johnson, the striker handling the ball in his eagerness to get the better of the tracking midfielder.
Johnson's partner in crime in the centre of the park, Michael Ferrante, was next to chance his arm, unleashing a dipping thirty-yard volley which narrowly cleared the crossbar of the goal towards which Bolton was beating a hasty retreat in the 27th minute, the goalkeeper having raced out to the edge of his penalty area to punch clear a raking free-kick from Moss.
Sydney finished the half strongly, going close on a handful of occasions inside the last ten minutes. Alex Brosque hit the roof of the net with a looping header from a superb McFlynn cross, while Moss smothered a low drive from Ruben Zadkovich after he had scythed in from the left and stood up Kristian Rees, seconds after Wellington's defender had seen a piledriver blocked to safety by Talay, following a Felipe corner.
A vital tackle by Karl Dodd - Wellington's best defender - thwarted Steve Corica as he dashed onto a precise pass from Middleby, who had an impressive first half. From the resulting corner, Tony Popovic headed wide, while another inviting delivery from McFlynn saw Zadkovich's flying header clearing the crossbar to conclude the half's action.
Following the drama of the penalty incident which kick-started the second half, the teams exchanged efforts on goal at regular intervals in an attempt to break the deadlock.
Ahmad Elrich, on one of the few occasions the Wellington speedster supplied a cross of consequence - he had an awful game, picked out the marginally better-performed Shane Smeltz in the 48th minute. The Golden Boot contender, who was caught offside more often than not in this match, saw Bolton grab his header under the crossbar.
After Santalab had fired a twenty-yarder over the bar, a quickly taken Felipe free-kick slipped Smeltz in on the right, from where he drove a low cross into the goalmouth, the near post run of the hard-working Coveny his target. But the striker was thwarted by Bolton, who anticipated the danger well and pawed the ball to safety.
Just after the hour mark, Wellington launched a couple of counter-attacks which had Sydney scrambling. The visitors were sniffing around the home team?s penalty area when Zatkovich left Steven Old in a crumpled heap with a late lunging challenge.
Amazingly, referee Williams allowed play to continue - even Sydney were anticipating the whistle - and Elrich promptly set off down field at a great rate of knots. The less said about his cross, the better. But within seconds, Wellington were raiding again, this time through Smeltz, who slipped a pass through for Coveny to hit on the run. Sadly for the most industrious black-clad player on the park, his finish was wayward.
Sydney retorted with a neat move featuring Santalab, Corica, Zadkovich and Brosque, who was only thwarted by Dodd's last-ditch tackle in the 67th minute. Within two minutes, Bolton was thwarting another Felipe free-kick, while soon after, Coveny, on receipt of an Elrich pass, produced a superb low cross which fizzed across the goalmouth, an invitation for any incoming striker to fill his boots.
Smeltz, however, was on a different planet. He'd made a great run through the middle which, had he continued it, would have set him up to net his tenth goal of the season, as Coveny?s cross was tailor-made for his incoming team-mate. But somewhere along the way, Smeltz saw fit to check his run, and Wellington's last attack of note petered out.
Sydney had two more such raids in them, and on both occasions, they took full advantage of concentration lapses by Wellington's players, following substitutions made by the home team.
In the 77th minute, Royce Brownlie entered the fray for Felipe, and within ninety seconds, Sydney had opened the scoring. Corica's short corner found the unmarked Talay lurking near the edge of the penalty area. His angled low ball into the goalmouth struck the heel of McFlynn and ricocheted off the tireless midfielder into the corner of Wellington's goal - 1-0 to the visitors, the deflection completely wrong-footing Moss.
It delighted the scorer, who was making his fiftieth A-League appearance, one which his team-mates crowned in stunning fashion in the 83rd minute.
Seconds after Jeremy Christie and Aloisi had entered the fray, Talay clipped the ball forward once more. It was beautifully weighted, and Brosque, watching its approach over his left shoulder as he stormed into the penalty area, couldn't have been better served.
Little wonder, then, that the striker produced a sublime finish to do full justice to the pass. Controlling the ball deftly with his left foot, he elegantly volleyed it past Moss and into the corner of the net in the same stride, and despite the attentions of both the advancing goalkeeper and the fast-closing figure of Dodd - 2-0, a goal which silenced the home faithful, which, it must be said, is a far from inconsiderable feat.
There was no way back now for Wellington, the competitive aspect of their season concluding with this defeat in their final home game of their maiden A-League campaign.
Visits to Melbourne Victory and Central Coast Mariners round off their debut season, while for Sydney, this victory saw them draw level with the latter combination and Queensland Roar in a three-way tie at the top, the extension of their campaign into February now assured as a result of the rich vein of form they have struck since coach John Kosmina's arrival in mid-season.