Melina Ayres helped will Melbourne Victory back into a helter-skelter Semi Final against arch-rivals Melbourne City, scoring a second-half hat-trick and a decisive spot-kick in their penalty shootout win.
Melina Ayres was born for finals.
The Melbourne Victory striker put in a performance for the ages at Casey Fields on Saturday afternoon, scoring a hat-trick in her side’s incredible comeback win over Melbourne City.
Not only did she fire home a bag of three, the Victory sharpshooter stood tall in the subsequent shootout, scoring a decisive penalty with cool, calm precision.
Ayres’ hat-trick was the third time in Liberty A-League history a player had scored three in a single finals game, following on from her own efforts in the 2021 Semi Final win over Brisbane Roar and Sam Kerr’s heroics in the 2019 semis for Perth Glory.
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“Yeah, I’m pretty wrecked, to be honest,” she told KEEPUP after the game.
“It feels good. It’s a great feeling, like the girls just work so hard and we dig ourselves into a bit of a hole at times, but we seem to find a way out of it.
“I’m so proud of everyone for digging in and backing themselves and yeah, it’s great.”
However, at half-time, it was not looking good for Victory, who were up against it at the interval after Rhianna Pollicina fired City into the lead.
Ayres had struggled to build herself into the game and according to coach Jeff Hopkins, cut a frustrated figure due to a lack of service coming her way.
Some words of wisdom from the Victory boss helped her regain focus in the second-half.
“She was a little bit disappointed at half-time that we didn’t play forward as much as we wanted to in the first-half,” Jeff Hopkins said.
“We were playing too much in front of them and a lot of the time Melina was up there on her own, just working hard for the team but not really getting much service and I just said to her as she went back on… ‘you will get one, two chances just make sure you’re ready for them’ and she actually got three.
“I think again, when you have Casey (Dumont) on one end of the field and you have got Mel on the other end of the field and you have got the hearts and the players in between them who will never give up then you’re always got a fighting chance and we proved that today.”
Ayres wasn’t going to let Victory go quietly into the night, scoring a penalty shortly after the break to level the scores before unleashing a top quality strike from the edge of the area to give her side the lead.
And she didn’t hide how much that goal meant to her.
But Ayres was only getting started. Minutes later, she volleyed home her third to wrap up a 19 minute hat-trick to give Victory a two-goal lead heading into the final twenty minutes.
During that period, it was nothing but clean air in Ayres’ mind, who was solely focused on the task at hand as she ripped through City’s back-line.
“Not much, which is usually when I play better,” she said when asked what was going through her head during her scoring streak.
“We had a bit of momentum and the girls had dug deep and we’d been defending a lot and we were getting it forward. It was good that we could put them away.
“It’s a bit of weight off the back, the first one.
“It’s just good to get a few in and yeah, it’s just I don’t know, I’m so tired! I’m just happy that I can put a few away and we’ve worked so hard for this. It’s good that we could get it done.”
Big goals in big games are far from outliers when looking at Ayres’ career.
Last season, she came back from injury on the eve of finals after a long-term injury, scoring goals in both the Semi and Preliminary Final en route to Victory’s last Championship.
Her impact on the big stage can’t be understated, joking that maybe she should only play finals every season.
“I said to Jeff (Hopkins) maybe I’ll try and just play the last four games every year… Play a couple of Semi Finals, and a (Grand Final), that’ll be alright,” she told KEEPUP in December.
Later in the game, Ayres showed tremendous poise as she stood up and scored the decisive second penalty to give Victory a 2-0 lead in the shootout – just after Casey Dumont had scored and saved Katie Bowen’s penalty.
“Yeah, she (Dumont) loves the first one her whole career,” Ayres said.
“So I let her take it. She’s confident and I’m happy to score the second one and the rest of the girls, Maja (Markovski), (Alana) ‘Murph’, just put it away. We were practicing so hard. It’s great to see it come off.”
