City moved clear of the chasing pack and within one point of second placed Newcastle Jets as the club began life without star signing Tim Cahill.

Known in the past for goal gluts and leaky defences - this time City scored one and soaked up the pressure.

Just on the hour Luke BrattanĀ found Ross McCormack inside the box and the Scot in a one-on-one with Ben Kennedy slid the ball under the goalkeeper and into the net .

It was a goal that began with Bouzanis' quick grasp of the possibilities.

"Look it's something we work on during the week but credit to the boys," Bouzanis said.

"It takes me to distribute but it takes them to understand when it's right to do it and when it's not right to do it.

"Brattsy's peeled out to the left, managed to knock it down quickly - so it's collectively a good goal I think because it was good play before that as well."

Mariners' goalkeeper Ben Kennedy repelled the City attack in the first half, with the breakthrough finally coming just as the visitors looked more threatening.

And they may have had a late shout for a penalty when Iacopo La Rocca, already sitting on a yellow, fouled Andrew Hoole just inside the box. While, a brilliant block by Stefan Mauk on Connor Pain prevented a potential equaliser late on.

Bouzanis said the team knew the second-half would be a hard slog, with the likes of starletĀ Nathaniel Atkinson, 18, under the pump for the full 90.

"We know that we're resilient and we know that we're hard to breakdown this year.

"(But) Central Coast is a very good footballing team. Paul Okon has gotĀ  them playing very good football.

"We knew towards the end there would be tired legs...you've got Nathaniel Atkinson just come on and done a brilliant job for us.

"He tired towards the end,so we had to soak up the pressure and make sure we got the three points."