Three Socceroos have gotten on the scoresheet for Macarthur as the Bulls dismantled Melbourne City 6-2 at Campbelltown Sports Stadium.
Mitch Duke, Luke Brattan and Adrian Caceres were the national team representatives amongst the goals, with Luke Vickery, Dean Bosnjak and Harry Sawyer rounding out the scorers for Macarthur.
Meanwhile Medin Memeti and debutant Marcus Younis scored the two goals for City.
The win meant that Macarthur move up to third on the Isuzu UTE A-League table, although fourth placed Sydney have three games in hand.
The result could have been worse for City, with Harry Sawyer having a late goal ruled out for a handball in the lead up play and Duke hitting the crossbar in the first half.
Macarthur opened the scoring through Duke inside six minutes, when Walter Scott got on the end of a ball that City keeper Patrick Beach had punched to the edge of the area and plated up the 50 cap Socceroo at the near post.
From there the Bulls didn’t take their foot off the collective City throat, with Brattan taking advantage of the ball spilling clear from an errant touch from Max Caputo and chipping Beach from fully 40 metres just three minutes later.
When Memeti scored from a Filip Kurto mistake in the 24th minute it looked like City had a lifeline, but Caceres made the job harder when he took the space afforded to him by the Melbourne defenders to pinpoint his finish into the bottom corner past Beach.
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City thought they had a second in first half stoppage time, but the VAR upheld the assistant referee’s call that Nathaniel Atkinson had been offside in the second phase of the corner.
Both sides rang the changes at half time, with Brattan – who had picked up a knock in the first half – coming off for Dean Bosnjak.
Meanwhile Aurelio Vidmar – who earlier confirmed that Kai Trewin has played his last game for the club – hooked Caputo and Max Schreiber for Besian Kutleshi and Takeshi Kanamori.
The subs didn’t do anything to change the flow of the match, with Luke Vickery making Ryan Teague pay for pondering on the ball to score the Bulls’ fourth in the 62nd minute.
In the 70th minute Bosnjak piled on the pain, easing past Kutleshi to run on to a brilliant ball from Scott, and putting the afterburners on to calmly roll the fifth past Beach.
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The class and poise shown by Marcus Younis to score on his club debut would have been an element of consolation for City, but the sixth goal being scored by Sawyer in stoppage time would not.
Sawyer had moments earlier been in a confrontation with Samuel Souprayen before getting on the end of a cross from Chris Ikonomidis to score a trademark towering header before a similarly characteristic celebration with the corner flag.
City will now have to pick themselves up for a trip across the Tasman to take on Wellington next Friday, while Macarthur will be hoping to take the momentum of the victory to Coopers Stadium later that same evening when they take on Adelaide United.
ALEX TOBIN MEDAL VOTES:
3. Adrian Caceres
2. Walter Scott
1. Luke Vickery
