Melbourne Victory booked a spot in the Foxtel Y-League Grand Final with a resounding 4-1 win over Adelaide United on Saturday.
Summary
Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio scored a hat-trick for Victory at Epping Stadium, while Joshua Varga produced a fine strike.
Jai King-Byrne had halved the deficit for Adelaide early in the second half, but Victory responded on its way to a deserved win.
Victory finished two points clear atop Conference A and will Sydney FC in the Grand Final at Jubilee Stadium on Friday.
The host made a perfect start with two goals inside 16 minutes against Adelaide.
Lawrie-Lattanzio got on the end of a Nishan Velupillay pass and rounded goalkeeper Cameron Cook to put away the opener.
He struck again 10 minutes later, firing through Cook’s legs after Aaron Anderson had hit the post following a corner.
Victory dominated the opening 45 minutes and should have added to its lead prior to the break.
Instead, Adelaide responded seven minutes into the second half when King-Byrne produced a composed finish from inside the area.
But Victory would claim a win, restoring its two-goal lead when Varga stepped inside from the left before unleashing a stunning strike into the top corner.
Velupillay hit the post after a one-two with Lawrie-Lattanzio in the 73rd minute but the latter would seal Victory’s win and complete his hat-trick late on.
Victory goalkeeper Matthew Sutton also made a couple of fine late saves as the game opened up with Adelaide pushing.
Head coach Gareth Naven’s post-match thoughts
“I think the word is perform. I talked about it during the week that it was important to keep doing what we’re strong at. I think today proves that defensively we were strong, in attack we were strong and kept chipping away at what we’re good at and that’s what performance is and for youth players that’s the key I think, that they’ve got to know what it looks like, see what it is, understand that hard work achieves it. There were probably patches of the game that we got dominated, we hung in, we struggled but we stayed in the game, we were competitive and it’s another match on Friday as well – a Grand Final against Sydney in Sydney. It’s a nice situation to be in for players.”
Result
Foxtel Y-League 2019/20 Round 10
Melbourne Victory 4 (Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio 6’/16’/88′, Joshua Varga 69′)
Adelaide United 1 (Jai King-Byrne 52′)
Melbourne Victory: Matthew Sutton (gk) (c); Zayden Bello, Aaron Anderson, Matthew Bozinovski (Ryan Lethlean 78′), Dalibor Markovic; William Wilson, Jack Morton; Nishan Velupillay (Jack Palazzolo 83′), Joshua Varga, So Nishikawa; Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio
