Melbourne Victory and sometimes Melbourne Draw. But still no Melbourne Lose.

Melbourne Victory hasn't had it all their own way this season -- Jing Reec's 89th minute equaliser to secure Central Coast a 1-1 draw on Saturday the latest example -- but they're still undefeated.

When will Melbourne Victory lose again? We’re at 12 weeks and counting without defeat now, even if Jing Reec’s 89th-minute equaliser spoiled what was shaping as a seventh win of the campaign after Daniel Arzani’s first-half penalty. Indeed, it’s not quite been an exercise in nominative determinism thus far, Tony Popovic’s side instead splitting their results between six wins and six draws, but it’s still a run of football that, for now, is unblemished. 

But yes, Reec’s breakaway leveller, just timing his run to ensure he was onside at its beginning, takes some of the shine off things. On the cusp of beginning to open up a notable gap atop the A-League Men, Victory will instead fall to second on the table should Wellington take maximum points against Perth Glory on Sunday evening – such a result bringing their wins total to seven as opposed to Victory’s six, with the hitherto unknown rule change made by the league at the start of the season now placing a greater weight on that than the latter’s superior goal difference. 

On Saturday, the sapping conditions of a stinking hot afternoon kickoff did their best to suck the life out of both sides. Add to this a sparse crowd that, despite the best efforts of those in attendance, couldn’t fill the vacuum of the empty seats around them and overarching circumstances weren’t conducive towards sending a bolt of electricity through two sides that while amongst the league’s highest scoring, both prefer to operate as the reactive side with less possession.  

Instead, very early on it became apparent that if one team was going to find a way to win it they would need to do so with a moment. And for most of the game, it was Victory that looked like they’d made theirs count when the much-maligned Chris Ikonomidis hustled to get in front of an unawares Dan Hall and won a penalty when the defender swung his boot through him in an attempt to clear. Arzani stepped up and, after a stutter-step run-up to tempt the footballing gods, dispatched what was ultimately the match-winner. 

The Mariners, in contrast, looked as if they were being given sniffs of moments of their own but couldn’t find a way to seize them. They ultimately outshot their opponents and did create better looks from open play, mostly in the first half, but be it Angel Torres, Alou Kuol, Will Wilson, or Christian Theoharous, none could find their mark. 

But this side from Gosford has made something of a habit of refusing to know when they’re beaten in recent years. A sheer bloody-mindedness that helped lift them to a momentous championship last season. And lo, did arrive Max Balard and Reec as time wore down on Sunday, the former sliding a ball into the path of the latter, who promptly rounded Paul Izzo and finished into an open net. After a winless opening month to the campaign, they’re now ten games unbeaten across all competitions, fourth on the table and with their tails up ahead of a visit from Melbourne City next week. 

But despite it perhaps being overshadowed, and Popovic wasn’t impressed with his side coughing the ball up in a manner that allowed the Mariners to transition for their goal, Victory did show heart in this one too. Bruno Fornaroli’s ongoing absence is the major challenge they’re facing down, clearly, but both Ryan Teague and Fabien Monge picked up injuries during the warm-up on Saturday that they needed to battle through, and a host of players went down with cramps. Attacker Nishan Velupillay ended the game playing right back.

They will cross the Tasman to take on Wellington at Sky Stadium in just six days. In their first fixture at AAMI Park, Wellington didn’t have a shot on target all night but still managed to come away with a 1-1 draw thanks to an unfortunate own goal. 

Now, let’s pre-emptively move to not get ahead of ourselves. An undefeated season is very likely not going to happen. As impressive as going three months of football without loss is, Victory hasn’t looked like the kind of all-conquering force that will almost certainly be required to go invincible in the Australian top flight; with its salary cap, foreign player limits, scheduling tomfoolery, and more, the league simply isn’t designed to allow a team to accomplish such a feat. 

But for now, at least, Popovic’s unit keeps finding the answers to not lose football matches. Escape defeat against Wellington next week and they’ll equal the club-record unbeaten run set back in 2022. If you’d asked a Victory fan if they’d take that at the start of the season, coming off yet another campaign in which they’d finished second-bottom and for all intents and purposes hit rock bottom, pretty likely they’d have taken that. 

Joey Lynch has travelled to Sydney for Unite Round as a guest of the Australian Professional Leagues.