Wellington Phoenix have defeated a relatively full-strength Melbourne City 4-1 in a pre-season friendly in Townsville.
A crowd of 3,856 turned out at the Townsville Sports Reserve to see the two A-League sides in action, and they would have been fairly impressed with what they saw from Ernie Merrick’s men.
Fresh off his heroics for the Socceroos midweek, Tim Cahill scored his first goal for City to open the scoring in the 15th minute, before a Roy Krishna double and a deflected Gui Finkler free-kick put the Phoenix 3-1 ahead at half-time.
This is how we will line up today against @WgtnPhoenixFC in Townsville #MCYvWEL #CityOnTour pic.twitter.com/r1RncNHnJA
— Melbourne City FC (@MelbourneCity) September 11, 2016
Both side made triple changes early in the second-half as the Phoenix maintained control of the game, with new signing Finkler also collecting a brace to put his side up 4-1 in the 57th minute.
FULL TIME | A brilliant pre-season performance! Doubles from @RoyKrishna21 & @Guifinkler have sealed the #Nix a 4-1 win over @MelbourneCity
— Wellington Phoenix (@WgtnPhoenixFC) September 11, 2016
The result may be of concern to John van’t Schip’s men who face Western Sydney Wanderers in the quarter-finals of the FFA Cup on September 21.
#Nix star and double scorer @Guifinkler signing autographs postmatch pic.twitter.com/CdTQCQ66iz
— Wellington Phoenix (@WgtnPhoenixFC) September 11, 2016
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