Dread it. Run from it. Holly McNarama, and Melbourne City, arrives all the same.

A ruthless hattrick from Holly McNamara has helped Melbourne City see off Perth Glory and move into third on the A-League Women table -- just four points off top with three games in hand.

You can try and run from Holly McNamara. But given how rapid she is, you’d probably not have much luck getting away even before you got to the hiding part. And after her hattrick powered Melbourne City to a 3-1 win over Perth Glory on Sunday afternoon, moving her to the top of the A-League Women’s Golden Boot rankings and her side up into third on the table, it’s not just the Matildas attacker that looms increasingly ominously over the rest of the competition.

At times this season, one almost could have forgotten that City was even fielding a team. They would go weeks without playing, after all, absent from stadiums and screens amid their Asian Champions League campaign, fixture postponements, or fixture postponements resulting from these Asian commitments. And yet now, as 2026 comes into view, here they are. They’ve almost appeared, especially if you’re a fan of one of their rivals, like something a horror villain; materialising from nowhere and yet now sitting third on the A-League Women table, just four points back of league-leaders Canberra United with three games in hand.

Pick up all nine points on offer in those games and they’ll move to the league’s summit. And they’ll do so quite comfortably. For while a greater level of parity across the A-League Women does make the cut and thrust of its week-to-week action more unpredictable and allows for fresh challengers to emerge in the race for the title, the communal bloodletting it produces also opens the door for a side to quickly begin to separate itself if they can find a level of consistency. And given that City was already leading the league in points per game coming into Sunday, even accounting for their loss to Canberra a few weeks ago, (ominous) signs are perhaps beginning to emerge.

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And perhaps fittingly, Perth experienced this phenomenon, of being ruthlessly overhauled, writ small across their defeat at AAMI Park.

Because coming out of the blocks quickly, Stephen Peters’ side didn’t just take it to the defending premiers in the opening exchanges; they were well on top of them. Bronte Trew and Susan Phonsongkham both had chances go wide in the first ten minutes, while City was at times struggling to get the ball out of their own half, let alone into their opponent’s penalty area. On another day, perhaps they’re leading by two goals after the opening ten minutes and the narrative of this game completely shifts.

“I thought the first 20 were outstanding. I think they looked rattled,” Peters said. “And I think a little bit of gamesmanship from their end took over, and the referee fell into that.

“Giving silly fouls to them when there’s nothing really there, slowing the game down. Every time that happened, they stayed down and regrouped and then just played a long ball into territory and made us work the ball out from the other end. I thought that had a significant impact on the game.”

And yet, even if Tijan McKenna looked comfortable as she cleared away an attempted McNamara breakaway in the 17th minute, Rola Badawiya headed goalward soon after, and Danella Butrus then dragged her 18th-minute attempt comfortably wide of the near post, a shift in the air was apparent. For all the early running that the Glory had done, their inability to turn it into goals, to deliver something approaching an actual blow to their pursuers, augured a familiar trope. And the unmistakable opening chords of the hunter’s refrain, one that would shift the dynamics of the contest, were beginning to play.

And then in the 23rd minute, she struck. McNamara, the closest thing the A-League Women has to a pitiless, stone-cold killer, was played in behind the Glory line by a perfectly-placed ball from Leah Davidson and showed no mercy: accelerating away from the trailing defenders before coolly slotting the ball beyond Teresa Morrissey for her fifth goal of the season.

Coming into the game off the back of two straight wins, the Glory had come in with their tails up. Certainly, they were a far better side than the one that had last come to Melbourne in late November and melted away in the face of Melbourne Victory. But Badawiya’s headed attempt would prove the last attempt on goal they had in the opening stanza. And just when they may have held out hopes of escaping to the dressing room down just a single goal, the walls closed in and City, and their number nine, struck once more.

Pressing high, Chinaza Uchendu forced the ball away from McKenna and knocked the ball into the path of Davidson. The midfielder, in turn, kept the play moving as she was closed down by Mischa Anderson and poked it to McNamara. The attacker, now all alone and in possession, then did exactly as you would expect: drilling a shot into the bottom corner of the net to double the lead.

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Now, those familiar with the genre will know there’s always a moment in the movies when the killer falters and leaves an opening. And after Rebekah Stott, playing in her 150th A-League Women’s game, was twice called into action to snuff out Glory attacks early in the second half, the West Australians got their moment of hope and struck a blow of their own in the 50th minute when Grace Johnston received a long ball from Georgia Cassidy, got to the byline, and found Trew in a position to finish with a low ball to the back post.

Was the comeback on? After Melbourne Victory suddenly rose from the grave and enveloped Central Coast with three stoppage-time goals to secure a 3-3 draw the day prior, nothing could be ruled out. And City missed a chance to apply a double tap to see off this hope soon after when McNamara forced a high turnover of her own on the hour mark and squared the ball to a wide-open Butrus, only for the youngster’s subsequent shot to be placed far too close to Morrissey.

But if you’re going to do something, to remorselessly kill off hopes and dreams of a comeback as McNamara herself had done when she delivered the blow that won the Melbourne Derby last week, perhaps it’s better to do it yourself. So in the 73rd minute, with one burst of acceleration to take her away from her marker after being played through by Davidson once more (Davidson herself teed up by a surgical pass from Stott) and then a deft chip over Morrissey, the 22-year-old brought up her fourth City hattrick, moved into sole possession of the league’s goalscoring charts, and delivered the coup de grâce.

Header Image: Melbourne City