Wellington Phoenix 1-1 Melbourne Victory
by Ben Gilby (8/2/25)
Above: Maya McCutcheon celebrates after putting Wellington Phoenix ahead against Melbourne Victory today. Photo: Wellington Phoenix.
Wellington Phoenix produced an impressive offensive display against Melbourne Victory at Porirua Park but were left to rue a combination of an error and loss of concentration that denied them all three points.
This was a hugely enjoyable match and the action started with a bang. With just 90 seconds on the clock, Annalie Longo’s corner from the left came in high to the near post where Maya McCutcheon came in running to nod the ball back behind her and into the net to give Wellington the lead to scenes of huge joy.
However, Victory hit back hard. Just over a minute later, only two superb saves from Carolina Vilão kept them from levelling.
First, Sara D’Appolonia took advantage of a defensive switch-off to break through into the right-hand side of the box which brought about a diving parry. Then, Alex Chidiac’s shot reared up after taking a deflection off of Alivia Kelly which caused the Phoenix keeper, already down on the floor, to twist and sweep her legs at the ball to keep it out.
The hosts came close on the 26-minute mark when a knife-through-butter move ended with Lara Wall’s glorious high ball into the mix from the left which found Manaia Elliott who got up between two Victory defenders, but directed her header narrowly wide of the near post.
With the Nix holding their lead into the break, they came out confidently and another clever move saw another close shave for the visitors six minutes into the second half. It was another set-piece from Longo’s that caused the danger.
This time, her free-kick caught Victory off guard as she took it quickly and it came in low from just outside the box to the right of centre for Elliott to run onto in a pre-planned move to force a save from Courtney Newbon.
However, as ever when playing a champion side, when you don’t take advantage of opportunities and momentarily switch off, you get badly burned. This was the case on the hour mark.
A loose pass across from the left flank was gobbled up by the onrushing Holly Furphy who advanced to find Emily Gielnik on the edge of the box. Tiana Jaber rushed in to extinguish the danger, but the defender didn’t look up to see where she was placing the ball. It fell perfectly for Nikki Flannery on the left-hand edge of the box to chest down, run onto and fire home a rocket from 10 yards out to level the scores.
Shortly afterwards, another easy on-the-eye move from the hosts forced Newbon into another save when McCutcheon played a perfectly weighted low pass with the outside of her foot into Olivia Fergusson on the right-hand edge of the box, who was facing away from goal. The attacker turned Kayla Morrison and hit an effort goalwards that the Victory keeper got down to.
Phoenix produced another excellent opportunity with 10 minutes remaining thanks to another classy pass from Longo who rolled the ball forward into the path of Emma Main whose first touch wasn’t quite perfect enough which allowed Laura Pickett sufficient time to hold the substitute off and deny her.
The final word went to Victory on the counter with five minutes left as Flannery advanced down the right to bend a pass into the path of Gielnik who rounded Vilão but couldn’t direct her shot on target.
This was a match that Wellington Phoenix felt that they should have won. They played some sparkling creative football, and, in the end, the outcome came down to a couple of losses of concentration as head coach Paul Temple reflected when speaking to the media afterwards.
“I think we’ve probably come away from it disappointed with a point to be honest. I thought we controlled the game from start to finish. We had more possession, more of of the ball, made more passes, looked the more likely.
“Ultimately, they got a goal off a mistake of ours, and that’s a horrible way to concede. For the players involved, they’re really frustrated with themselves, we’re frustrated as a team, but it’s just part of football as well…after that we responded quite well, and the team was probably going to score the winner if there was going to be one.”
Teams: WELLINGTON PHOENIX (4-4-2): Vilão, Jaber, Kelly, Barry, Wall, Whinham, McCutcheon, Longo, Jale, Elliott, Fergusson. Substitutes: Abbott, Brazendale, Jerez, Main, Neary.
Scorer: McCutcheon 2′.
MELBOURNE VICTORY (3-4-1-2): Newbon, Curtis, Morrison, Bunge, Jančevski, D’Appolonia, Murphy, Pickett, Lowe, Chidiac, Gielnik. Substitutes: Candy, Flannery, Furphy, O’Grady, Sakalis.
Scorer: Flannery 61′.
Referee: Kelly Jones.
Attendance: 1,015.
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