Sydney FC returned to winning ways by seeing off A-League leaders Wellington Phoenix 3-0 to keep alive their title hopes.
Three first-half goals proved the difference at the Westpac Stadium as the Sky Blues moved to within one point of their opponents at the summit.
The visitors had seen their nine-game unbeaten run come to an end last time out, and they very nearly got off to a horror start when Brent Griffiths was played through on goal with less than a minute on the clock, but Vedran Janjetovic was on hand to pull off a good stop.
It was to be Sydney who took the lead, though, courtesy of Jacques Faty's drilled effort at the back post which left Glen Moss with little chance between the sticks.
Shane Smeltz slotted home the second goal of the game just short of the half-hour mark after he latched onto Kiki Naumoff's shot, before Bernie Ibini's deflected effort, which appeared to take a deflection off Manny Muscat on its way through, essentially sealed the points for the Sky Blues.
Wellington, who were without a number of key players in attack this morning due to international call-ups, almost had one back when Albert Riera saw his header cleared away off the line by Naumoff, but the Spaniard was shown a second yellow card with 20 minutes remaining to leave the Nix down to 10 men for the remainder.
The two sides were soon levelled up when Smeltz was himself shown a straight red for an apparent stamp on Ben Sigmund, although Graham Arnold's charges saw out the remainder of the contest with ease to keep their unbeaten away record this season fully intact.
Daniel Lewis
