Melbourne City will host Sydney FC at AAMI Park in next Saturday’s Liberty A-League Grand Final after completing a comfortable 6-0 aggregate win over Newcastle Jets.
After easing to a 3-0 victory in the first leg in Maitland last week, City finished the job on their home turf on Sunday, emerging 3-0 winners to book their spot in the decider.
It was a consummate victory for Dario Vidosic’s side, with Rhianna Pollicina opening the scoring after 26 minutes after a superb defence-splitting pass from Daniela Galic, before Hannah Wilkinson and Leticia McKenna iced the cake in the second half.
However, it was actually the Jets who started the faster of the two sides, and coach Ryan Campbell may walk away wondering what might have been had an array of early chances been converted to heap the pressure onto the Premiers.
The visitors could easily have put a major dent in the three-goal first leg cushion inside the opening five minutes alone.
In a matter of seconds, Lauren Allen hit the crossbar, Melina Ayres had a header cleared off the line by Rebekah Stott and Sarina Bolden saw a close-range header saved by Barbara. Not long after, Bolden was sent through one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but uncharacteristically placed her shot too close to the Brazilian international, who made the save.
When City broke the deadlock through Pollicina, the shot count read: City 1, Jets 10.
In a way, that summed up the tie.
Across the two legs, the Jets created more than enough chances, but failed to capitalise, while City were clinical when it counted – and that’s why they’re off to the Grand Final.
By half-time, the visitors had amassed 1.52 expected goals, but nothing to show for it, despite some promising moments by an attack that paired Bolden and Ayres together in the same XI in a sign that Campbell would throw the kitchen sink at this match.
The Jets boss also restored goalkeeper Izzy Nino to the side in place of Tiahna Robertson and she produced a stellar double save to deny Emina Ekic and Pollicina just prior to the break.
At half-time, both sides made changes.
City introduced 44-year-old goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri off the bench for just her fourth appearance of the campaign, with Barbara reportedly removed as a precaution due to illness.
Meanwhile, the Jets brought on young gun Milan Hammond in place of Allen.
From there, City began to dominate, controlling nearly 80% of possession inside the opening 15 minutes of the second stanza as it became clear the Jets were running out of juice.
On came Alex Hunyh for what will go down as the final appearance of her Liberty A-League career, while City handed another opportunity to 15-year-old wonderkid Shelby McMahon, who had scored in each of her last two appearances.
Soon after, it was game over.
In the 67th minute, the ball spread wide to Ekic, who found Wilkinson and the Kiwi striker made no mistake, rolling her finish past Nino to make it 5-0 on aggregate. Indeed, no player has scored more goals in this fixture than the City star, who has five.
With the result beyond doubt, you sensed the floodgates could open and it wasn’t long before substitute McKenna popped up to add a third on the day, firing home from close range after being teed up by Pollicina.
The full-time whistle confirmed City’s spot in the biggest match of the season, while it marked the end of a historic season for the Jets.
Despite the aggregate score line in this tie, this has been a season of progress for the Hunter side, who stormed home to secure their spot in the Finals for only the third time in their history, before knocking off third-placed finishers Western United to earn a first ever Finals victory.
Campbell has done a stellar job since taking over mid-season from Gary van Egmond in a campaign that saw the emergence of young guns like Emma Dundas and Lara Gooch, while Sarina Bolden will go down as one of the great signings in club history.
All of that after retaining only four of their 28 players from last season.
