Melbourne Heart’s 3-2 derby win over Melbourne Victory means more than just bragging rights, with both coach John van ‘t Schip and goalscoring hero Matt Thompson saying the success was more value to their season than to their rivalry with the blue half of town.
Melbourne Heart’s 3-2 derby win over Melbourne Victory means more than just bragging rights, with both coach John van ‘t Schip and goalscoring hero Matt Thompson saying the success was more value to their season than to their rivalry with the blue half of town.
Heart notched their sixth win in their past seven matches to power to second in the table, behind only Central Coast Mariners, despite trailing early in an entertaining match in front of a record AAMI Park crowd.
But while a win over Victory is always sweet, Thompson, who scored two goals in three minutes to turn the game on its head late in the first half, said it was a sign of the maturity of the team that it wasn’t all about beating the traditional Hyundai A-League powerhouse.
“A win against anyone puts us second and here we are sitting second. I sat out there seven or eight weeks ago, we were sitting last and everyone was talking about what was going wrong with us,” he said.
“In house we knew we were heading in the right direction and things didn’t pan out for us. It was a just a matter of time and John (van ‘t Schip) kept saying it would come.”
“Luck has come our way in a couple of games and here we are. We are not there yet, we still have to improve and the first half an hour wasn’t good enough, but we are finding ways to win and we are becoming a hard team to beat.”
