Every once in a while, the football stars align and everything goes your way.
The perfect weekend for Phoenix fans needed to contain the following five ingredients...
- North Queensland to lose to Melbourne
- Brisbane to lose to Adelaide
- Perth to lose to Sydney
- Phoenix to beat Gold Coast
- Newcastle to lose to Central Coast
One by one, across an extraordinary Round 26, these things were ticked off, until we found ourselves with Phoenix in fourth place and just a win away from a home playoff match.
Two pieces of Carlos Hernandez magic put paid to Fury's slim playoff hopes on Friday night. No-one really expected North Queensland to be there in the post-season, but nonetheless it was good to have them mathematically extinguished.
Given recent form, number 2 was the least likely. Roar were off the back of a morale-boosting and season-saving victory over Sydney, while Adelaide go in against everyone as underdogs these days. But they picked this match to put on their best performance in a long, long time and when the final whistle blew, Phoenix were confirmed in the top six without even kicking a ball.
From there, it was a matter of exactly where everyone would end up, and more specifically, whether Phoenix could snatch fourth place from Glory and the Jets.
Perth v Sydney was a rollercoaster. A quite foreseeable scenario had Perth won was a Phoenix trip to Western Australia for a sudden-death match. Now the opposite may well occur with Perth a possible playoff opponent in Wellington. Home advantage is a massive factor for both Phoenix and Glory, especially against each other, with the energy-sapping journey across two time-zones a major impediment to the team that has to make it. Never have fans here roared so loudly for John Aloisi; his winning goal was cheered to the rafters and opened the door for Phoenix to avoid the longest road-trip in world club football.
And so to Skilled Park. Even given everything that had happened in the weekend already, Phoenix would almost certainly still be faced with an away playoff if they couldn't get at least something from their visit to the Glitter Strip. What transpired was the most important away victory in the club's history.
The weekend theme of things running Phoenix's way continued with a contentious penalty decision the game's defining moment. But if that was somewhat fortunate, there was nothing lucky about the lion-hearted defending of Andrew Durante and Jon McKain, the exceptional midfield shift put in by Vince Lia and the latest in a run of outstanding performances from Liam Reddy.
Phoenix earned their win - and their third consecutive clean sheet against Gold Coast - through total team effort and single-minded desire. They could yet pay another visit to Gold Coast later in the playoffs and they'd arrive with a quite justifiable confidence. Not only have the self-proclaimed "unbeatable" franchise with the runaway Golden Boot winner failed to succumb Phoenix in three attempts; they've been unable to muster a single goal in four and half hours of football.
To top everything off, the Jets' recent implosion continued with their fourth loss in five matches, meaning the practically impossible scenario of them scoring enough goals in their last two matches to overhaul Phoenix on goal difference is now chalked off.
Of course, anything less than a win against the Mariners on Friday will throw everything up in the air again. But with an unbeaten record at the Ring of Fire which stretches back sixteen games, and with the chance to add another home match a week later by subduing an opponent with nothing to play for, the odds must be stacked in Phoenix's favour. Add to this the five straight clean sheets they've kept against the Mariners and you'd have to think it's there for the taking.
Roll on Friday...and beyond.
