Wellington Phoenix shattered records galore at Westpac Stadium on October 25, as they scored a stunning 6-0 victory over a Gold Coast United side which started the round in top spot. The home team brought to an emphatic end their league record run of six successive stalemates, while recording the biggest win by any New Zealand team in Australian football's showpiece competition, as well as a record-equalling scoreline in the five-year-old league. Wellington were almost gifted the perfect start by Jason Culina after just two minutes. Gold Coast's captain played a square ball across goal, and Paul Ifill swooped on it in an instant. From twenty yards, his thumping drive swerved inches past the upright, to the accompaniment of groans galore from the 6,571 fans present, Wellington's lowest gate of the season to date. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, the match became decidedly disjointed, the whistle of referee Chris Beath its only consistent aspect, a result of his needing to stop play to award free-kicks for the numerous niggling fouls committed by both teams, but particularly by the visitors. This is because Wellington were denying Gold Coast the space in which to play, prompting frustration aplenty from those clad in white, although they didn't help their own cause by giving possession away almost as often as the whistle was being blown. There was plenty of chat between the teams as well, no doubt a result of Gold Coast coach Miron Bleiberg raising the stakes with his ill-considered comments in the build-up to the match, suggesting that Wellington coach Ricki Herbert should concentrate on his All Whites' duties and simply hand over the three points from this match to the visitors. The Jose Mourinho of the A-League would be well advised to keep his mouth shut and let his team do the talking for him in future, although given his penchant for speaking out on their behalf, perhaps Gold Coast aren't capable of doing their talking on the pitch, where it matters, and where it earns the respect of opponents and other interested parties alike. The visitors' performance in this match certainly suggested this was the case - they were a distinct second-best throughout the entire ninety minutes. But for a Culina free-kick from thirty yards, which warmed Mark Paston's gloves in the seventeenth minute, they offered nothing of consequence as an attacking force, unlike their opponents. The first touch of Gold Coast's injury-enforced substitute, Matt Osman, was to clear Daniel's 24th minute free-kick to safety, while three minutes later, a Leo Bertos cross for Ifill saw him eventually produce a shot on the turn which was blocked by the legs of Jess Van Strattan. Gold Coast's goalkeeper was given no chance seconds later, however, as Wellington deservedly opened the scoring. Tony Lochhead, on his fiftieth A-League appearance, swooped on a loose ball and slipped Ifill through the inside-left channel to the by-line, from where he pulled the ball back to the edge of the goal area in line with the near post. Daniel came hurtling in, and stabbed the ball home past a bewildered Van Strattan, who was substituted at half-time with a recurrence of his recent back injury. Before he departed the fray, he saw his crossbar shaking, a result of Ben Sigmund's header cannoning off the woodwork following a Bertos corner ten minutes before half-time. It was immediately after the interval that Wellington were at their most lethal, and one had to feel for Van Strattan's replacement, Scott Higgins. By the time he made his first meaningful touch in the match, just after the hour mark, he had conceded four goals! Wellington's fans must have thought they were in dreamland. Gold Coast's defence certainly was, as they afforded their goalkeeper scant support as wave upon wave of yellow-and-black-clad raids swept downfield, more often than not resulting in a goal inside the first fifteen minutes of the second

spell. Three minutes into the half, Ifill, on half-way by the left-hand touchline, sent a raking ball forward to reward the run of Tim Brown from midfield. He took the ball in his stride, rounded Higgins and rolled the sphere home into an empty net. 2-0 became 3-0 five minutes later. A brilliant run from the outstanding Ifill, across the Gold Coast penalty area, saw the striker set up Brown for a shot. He connected with air thanks to the timely challenge of Zenon Caravella, but Wellington's midfield general swiftly went about regaining possession, and duly did so. Ifill was the beneficiary of Brown's industry, and the Barbados international promptly made a monkey out of Michael Thwaite before, from the by-line, picking out Daniel two yards out from goal with the back of the net for company … Within sixty seconds, Wellington went 4-0 up, with the scorer of goals in both halves turning provider this time round. Daniel sent Chris Greenacre spearing through Gold Coast's shell-shocked rearguard, and he outmuscled Thwaite before rounding the luckless Higgins and rolling the ball home into the unguarded goal. If Bleiberg, who made his final substitution of the match at this point in proceedings, thought things couldn't get any worse, he was about to learn another harsh lesson - they could, and did! On the stroke of the hour mark, Wellington went nap, and there couldn't have been a more deserving scorer. Bertos' long throw-in wasn't cleared, and Ifill instantly took charge of the situation, shielding the ball well before working an opening with Vince Lia which allowed the striker to turn and rifle a shot through the legs of the luckless figure of Higgins - 5-0. And still they pressed for more. In the 65th minute, the enterprise of Brown, Greenacre and Ifill was too much for the Gold Coast defence to cope with, the last-mentioned evading the final challenge before entering the penalty area, only to stumble in his eagerness to poke the ball past the approaching figure of Higgins. The goalkeeper finally received some support from his defence in the form of Bas Van den Brink in the 68th minute, much to the chagrin of Ifill's replacement, Jiang Chen, who was denied by the defender's timely challenge as he looked to make his first touch in the match a goalscoring one. Eleven minutes later, a thumping twenty yarder from Brown cleared the crossbar by not a lot after substitutes Adrian Caceres and Chen had combined with Greenacre on the left. But the replacements were integral to Wellington's sixth goal, eight minutes from time. Lochhead sent Caceres careering down the left, and his inch-perfect cross to the far post found fellow substitute Troy Hearfield arriving bang on cue - 6-0. Before the final whistle, Higgins prevented Lochhead from marking his milestone appearance with a goal, while Chen headed wide in the dying minutes, both chances set up by Caceres on a day when Wellington's Yellow Fever fans delighted in serenading Gold Coast's former Phoenix marksman, Shane Smeltz, with chants of "Smeltzie, what's the score?" The league's leading marksman didn't even get a sniff of a chance to add to his tally in this one-sided affair, as "six-sational" Wellington, who went into this match propping up the table, wiped the floor with Miron Bleiberg's misfits, producing a thumping 6-0 A-League victory which will linger long in the memory of New Zealand football fans, and resonate loudly throughout the entire competition. Wellington:     Paston; Muscat, Sigmund, Durante, Lochhead; Bertos (Hearfield, 71), Brown (booked, 56), Lia, Daniel (Caceres, 71); Ifill (Chen, 67 (booked, 77)), Greenacre (booked, 25) Gold Coast:     Van Strattan (Higgins, 46); Thwaite, Rees (Osman, 23), Van den Brink, Anderson; Robson (booked, 87), Culina, Pantelidis (booked, 38) (Minniecon, 58), Caravella; Porter, Smeltz Referee:     Chris Beath