- Melbourne Heart 3 Sydney FC 1
MELBOURNE Heart coach John Aloisi says he is hellbent on reversing his side's poor away record next weekend after getting back in the top six with a 3-1 win against Sydney FC at AAMI Park last night.
Aloisi praised his side's performance in a game he said was huge in the context of the club's season.
Now it travels to Dunedin to play Wellington Phoenix in a clash that could make or break its finals aspirations.
Heart has not won away from Melbourne since December 2011.
"It's an away trip for Wellington too, so that's a positive we're looking at. We're playing in Dunedin," Aloisi said.
"We'll enjoy the win tonight, but we'll focus straight away on the Wellington trip and put this away record to bed because we know it's another big game for us.
"Wellington are in a position where they need to win at home - I think they're six points behind us, if I'm correct - so it's a very important game for both sides."
Goals from Nick Kalmar, Jonatan Germano and a penalty from David Williams yesterday gave Heart what proved a comfortable victory.
But the immediate future of captain Fred appears clouded after Kalmar started ahead of the Brazilian.
Aloisi conceded after the match that Fred, a second-half substitute as he was last week in his return match from a quad injury, had been fit enough to start.
"But I decided to go with Nicky," he said.
"Nicky's a good player and I thought he played really well here two weeks ago at home and Fred was coming back from injury.
"He scored a goal and in the type of game like tonight, the midfield that they have, I thought he could get in goal-scoring positions and he ended up doing that and set up Willo (Williams) for the penalty, too, which was a good ball."
Aloisi refused to talk about Lucas Neill's performance a week after the defender snubbed Heart.
He left that to Sydney FC coach Frank Farina who said the Socceroos captain was "OK" on debut for the club.
"I knew he would and could last 90 minutes," Farina said.
"It's a bit of a baptism of fire coming in to this game, but I'm relatively pleased and he'll just get better."
Farina lamented a first half he labelled as "sluggish" by his team.
"We always talk about the rollercoaster ride and today we were pretty flat," he said.
In front of a non-derby record home Heart crowd of 13,752, Kalmar scored in the 31st minute with a low shot past stranded Sydney goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic and played the ball that led to Williams being brought down in the box in the 53rd minute, forcing the dismissal of Sydney defender Seb Ryall.
Germano's goal was the result of a brilliant first-time pass from Eli Babalj nine minutes before the break.
Farina opted to go with Joel Griffiths and Alessandro Del Piero up front and the Italian showed a glimpse of his talents, forcing Andrew Redmayne into a diving save with a curled shot from in the ninth minute.
But the 38-year-old looked to be struggling with a lower right leg injury sustained in a collision with Terry Antonis at training on Friday.
MELBOURNE HEART 3 (Nick Kalmar 31m, Jonatan Germano 36m, David Williams 55m pen) SYDNEY FC 1 (Joel Griffiths 58m) at AAMI Park. Crowd: 13,752. Referee: Alan Milliner.
Melbourne Heart players celebrate Nick Kalmar's goal in the first half. Picture: George Salpigtidis
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