The Western Sydney Wanderers have played a cracking second half to take a magnificent 2-1 win against Melbourne Victory tonight. The Wanderers opened the scoring with a 25 yard wonderstrike from Keanu Baccus, doubled their lead with a wonderful long range effort from Alex Meier and held on for the win after Victory pulled a goal back with a Ola Toivonen penalty.
Western Sydney had the best of the first half despite going into the break level. The home side had the first major chance of the game in the 20th minute as Andrew Nabbout broke down the right hand flank, managed to get enough room to fire in a shot that Daniel Wilmering deflected towards the near post requiring a good save from Daniel Lopar to knock it out for a corner.
There was a touch of controversy midway through the half, Alex King pulling up the Victory defence for an illegal challenge just outside the area, blowing his whistle right as Alex Meier turned and unleashed a volley from 20 yards out that had Lawrence Thomas beaten completely, banging off the crossbar and into the goal, ruled out because the referee hadn't played advantage.
The game sparked into life in the second half, shortly after the break neat interplay from the Wanderers gave Sullivan a chance to chip a ball over the Victory defence for Mo Adam who played a cut-back in the direction the ball had come from for a charging Baccus and the midfielder fired in a first time missile past the full length dive of Thomas in the Victory goal. The curling strike found the top corner and he wheeled away in a deserved celebration.
Alex Meier capitalised on the excellent work of Mitch Duke who forced a massive error between Thomas & fullback Roux, they nearly collided and Thomas' failed clearance bobbled to Meier, 25 yards out from goal with no-one but a solitary outfielder on the line to beat, Meier's class showed as he lobbed Thomas and placed it well enough to get past Donachie on the line.
Melbourne came back fighting despite being two down and they drew level after receiving a lucky penalty for a Dylan McGowan handball as he tried to challenge for a header. Toivonen calmly slotted the well struck penalty past Lopar despite his dive going the right way. Melbourne hammered and pressed for an equaliser until the dying seconds but they couldn't get past the stout Wanderers defence. The win was the first time in the A-League that the Wanderers had picked up 6 points from the first 2 games and it puts them three clear at the top of the table pending the other games in the round.
The Wanderers next game is against Sydney FC at the Western Sydney Stadium at 7:30PM on Saturday October 26.
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