Ola Toivonen

Where would Victory be without Toivonen?

The captain made up for the dubious handball that gave Wellington the lead by scoring at the other end with another brilliant piece of technique, receiving the ball off a deflection and taking a few small touches before beating Stefan Marinovic.

In his first season at Melbourne, Toivonen had the support of Keisuke Honda, James Troisi, Kosta Barbarouses and Terry Antonis to propel Victory forward. This time around, without them, Toivonen carries a far greater load but he’s shown no signs of slowing down.

The Swede was at the centre of anything good for Victory as he came deep to become playmaker or waited in the box to try finish off any chances that came his way.

Victory manager Marco Kurz is fortunate to have a player of Toivonen’s quality, but he will need to find someone to help share the burden or he will be too dependent on his captain.

James Troisi

Adelaide’s match against Brisbane Roar was the most boring match to watch of the round, so it’s ironic that the best 10 seconds of the weekend came from it too.

Troisi made an angled run in behind the Brisbane midfield and received the ball in the channel before sprinting into the box.

He exchanged a quick one-two with Nikola Mileusnic to get past the final line of defence and took a couple more touches towards goal before squaring the ball and setting it up on a plate for Riley McGree.

That flicker of quality was all it took for Adelaide to take the win facing a packed Roar defence and it showed just why Troisi is one of Australia’s most misunderstood talents. He contains that flicker of skill that can light up a game, just as he did on Sunday.

To make things even more impressive, the former Victory midfielder even played in a far deeper role than he’s accustomed to but adapted seamlessly. With the time and space provided, he was able to take more control of the match and his assist was the perfect example of that.