Adelaide United 1 - Melbourne Victory 3

It was sweet revenge for the Victory as they took maximum points from Adelaide, having lost the return fixture earlier in the season before 30,000 at home.

The match had much promise before kick-off: Kevin Muscat returning to the side after his altercation with Adelaide manager John Kosmina in the last contest; Romario's home debut (having debuted for the club in the loss amongst the palms of Gosford the week before) and a festive atmosphere in the city as Day 1 of the Ashes at Adelaide Oval wound up.

I knew there was going to be a different atmosphere in the stadium as I walked across Port Road to get to the game - a mob of singing Victory supporters was congregating in the nature strip in the middle, then set off as I was passing them. Before I had sighted them, I thought that perhaps the noise from the last hour of play at the Adelaide Oval was somehow carrying to Brompton. Not so - the Victory boys were getting warmed up. They lit flares (lights, and smoke) and began crossing the road, then effectively walked up Port Road blocking traffic which could not drive through the orange smoke. I got to the gate ahead of them and said to the security bloke "here they come!".

A sell-out crowd of 15,694 was on hand (still empty seats in the reserved members' seating) for this match. The Victory supporters, herded into the north-west corner, were more vocal and frankly showed up the timid cricket-like observance of the match from the Adelaide supporters.

Robbie Bajic earned the brickbat for the game - I was on the city side of the stadium and could clearly see what the ground officials would not replay from the FoxSports feed on the big screen: a blatant kick-out at Fred as he went past, Bajic having already collected the ball safely. A foul committed in the penalty area too. Stupid, Stupid and... Stupid. A red card, rightly so and good refereeing by internationally recognised Mark Shield (eg officiated in one leg of Asian Champions' League final this year) for spotting it. Bajic's dismissal was the talk of the crowd after the game, not so much for whether he deserved it, but the impact it had on the team. Kosmina took a dejected Travis Dodd off - he'd hardly had a kick in the 10 minutes of game time - to bring on reserve 'keeper Beltrame. Stupid work by Bajic and its just as well he has to spend a week on the sidelines - he deserves at least that in discipline from his own club.

Muscat slotted home the penalty and it was 0-1. I think when I wrote about Muscat and Kosmina 6 or so weeks ago, I noted it was two hotheads clashing and didnt seek to lay blame one way or the other. I did feel Muscat got off lightly. I don't think the booing he got last night was deserved, he has been a great servant to Australian football. The booing was perhaps not as animated as one might have expected, so perhaps there are some purists in the crowd.

The game looked set for an away win bloodbath for Melbourne until the referee - in a 50/50 decision between yellow and red - gave a red card to Brebner for a late challenge on an Academy-Award-winning Ross Aloisi. (Romario got two nominations for Best Actor later in the game) Suddenly it was 10 - 10 on the pitch and we were back in it. Despite a woeful first half where Alagich and Kemp's passes in from the wings were terrible, and the supply to Romario too high for "Bauxinho" (shorty) - we were lucky to go in at the break 1-1 thanks to a finally decent cross in from Kemp finding a power-driving header from Fernando.

After the break, I feel, we looked much better and disciplined and used Romario much better. He came back into the game much more and we looked the more dangerous side. However, failing to convert cost us as Melbourne nabbed two more goals on the counter-attack.

Burns went off for Owens, returning from injury, the latter looking like he needed the run after he showed poor touches with brick-feet (ball bouncing off to Melbourne players rather than staying at his feet), poor passing and poor communication with his team-mates - running to space when in fact the player was wanting to pass to him, resulting in a turnover.

When Kosmina took off an industrious-but-too-slow-against-Melbourne Fernando for Rees (a "Hail Mary" attempt to conjure a goal in putting a tall defender up as a forward) I think he should have taken a hobbling Costanzo off, as certainly the last goal was due - in my view - to Costanzo obviously being unable to chase Melbourne's forwards Allsop and Thompson on the break. However, Burns had got a "kicking" according to the biased 107.9 Life FM commentators, so maybe he was getting looked after for next week.

So we went down 1-3 and I don't think we deserved even a point from the game - especially given Allsop's hitting the crossbar after pouncing on a United defensive mix-up. As soon as we went down 1-2 I thought 2-2 would be an amazing and headline-making result. We wouldnt have deserved it though.

We got 5 yellow and 1 red cards to Victory's 1 red card for Brebner, which a Crows crowd would say was biased umpiring. However, we were far more focussed on the man than Melbourne who I think, overall, played a very impressive and composed game of football.

Best 3: Kemp, Alagich and Romario. Despite their poor crosses and turnovers in the first 45, Kemp and Alagich were better and more productive in the second half - for naught, as it turned out. Likewise Romario came into the game much more in the second half - again for naught, but he had two clear shots at goal that only the 'keeper Theoklitos could stop. The little man will no doubt be devastated to have gone half-way through his guest stint on his "journey to Pele's 1000" without scoring. A home game next Sunday against New Zealand Knights beckons as cherry-ripe not only for Romario's goal-scoring odyssey, but for United to pick itself up off the canvas and try to win back a top-two slot.