Advantage Phoenix after Kiwis leave Melbourne with 0-0 draw
A week ago Victory provided drama for the ages. This semi final was more sedative than sensational as the visitors got what they came for - a clean sheet and home ground advantage to come.
Two-legged semi-finals are always tentative affairs. It's not as if neither team is trying to win, but for players and coaches involved the imperative is not so much to gain an advantage, but to avoid a loss.
Thus a game involving the away team with the best defensive record in the competition - Wellington Phoenix - against hosts with the third-best defensive record - Melbourne Victory, was always likely to be a cagey encounter.
And for 90 minutes that's just how it turned out with Phoenix, who had finished second on the table, 11 points ahead of third-placed Victory, proving adept at managing the game and, for the most part, reducing their hosts to speculative long shots which their youthful goalkeeper Alex Paulsen dealt with relatively comfortably.
Neither side was able to impose themselves on what was a scrappy affair with too many misplaced passes and seemingly no player able to take the game by the scruff of the neck.
The Phoenix's season has been characterised by their well-organised and disciplined play and, with a second leg in Wellington to come and the prospect of hosting the Grand Final (in the event of a surprise Sydney FC win over Central Coast in their second leg semi-final next weekend) they were not about to change. So the 0-0 scoreline should perhaps not be any surprise.
It was an opening period that proved a motif for the game as a whole, with neither team producing clear-cut opportunities with Victory, as might be expected, making most of the running albeit in stuttering fashion.
This was a much-changed Victory lineup from that which had come back from the dead against Melbourne City last week, Tony Popovic leaving out key players like Jake Brimmer, Daniel Arzani and Ben Folami for, he said, reasons of fatigue.
Their biggest loss, however, had nothing to do with fatigue, with Zinedine Machach unavailable for both these games against the Kiwis following his dismissal during the first half of the elimination final last weekend.
Victory had played through 120 minutes with ten men and triumphed in a penalty shoot-out seven days earlier, so the coach's caution was perhaps understandable.
Did it affect their rhythm and cohesion? Certainly, none of their attacking players caused the sort of problems Arzani did early in the game against City a week before and they struggled to work their way through the structured Phoenix rearguard.
The tone was set in the 15th minute when Victory defender Jason Geria blasted wide from the edge of the area when the fall fell to him, while Paulsen held a Bruno Fornaroli long shot easily enough six minutes later.
Victory winger Salim Khelifi cut a largely anonymous figure bar a tricky series of stepovers which led to a corner shortly before the interval.
On a rare foray into a dangerous area for the visitors, Nicholas Pennington twice shot over, with Victory goalkeeper Paul Izzo, the hero last week as he had one of the games of his life, able to watch without too many concerns.
Fornaroli went down under a heavy Pennington challenge in the Phoenix penalty area but referee Adam Kersey waved appeals for a spot kick away, content to point to the corner flag as the ball ran out of play.
Paulsen was untroubled by two long-range efforts from Roly Bonevacia and Jordy Valadon as the half drew to a close, Phoenix content to get to the break-all square.
Victory threatened early in the second half but lacked a cutting edge and Popovic rang the changes just before the hour mark, bringing on Arzani, Brimmer and Folami to freshen up his attacking options.
Folami flashed another long-range effort, but it went straight to Paulsen as what had been a disappointing match limped towards what seemed certain to be a goalless stalemate. Fornaroli followed suit with ten minutes remaining but another speculative effort from outside the area was gathered by the Nix keeper.
Victory sought to up the ante in the dying minutes and Brimmer's stoppage time rising shot which sailed over the bar more like a rugby conversion than a goal-bound attempt summed up Victory's afternoon.
For all the hosts huffing and puffing, the Nix stood resolute, and while this tie remains very much alive, the advantage next week will surely lie with the Phoenix on their own turf.