Close to 20,000 people were inside the stadium on Sunday as the New Zealand international turned up the wow factor, underlining why coach Ricki Herbert was so keen to capture his signature in the offseason.

The former Newcastle Jets player opened the scoring in the 15th minute with a sweet lob after Louis Fenton combined with Paul Ifill to break the Shillong defence.

Just before half-time Brockie doubled the advantage and secured the hat-trick in the 60th minute with a low drive. After the break he nodded home a long throw to notch up number four before academy player Tom Biss capped off a solid senior starting debut by adding a fifth in stoppage time.

In the second-half Herbert made a number of substitutions and Shillong made the most of the changes with Friday Gbeneme grabbing a brace in 10 minutes giving the locals plenty to cheer about.

After the match Brockie admitted the last time he scored four goals was “probably in the under 10s”.

“It was a good day because you always enjoy it when you are scoring goals,” Brockie said.

“The main thing is that the combinations are starting to work and the more we work and train the better it will become.

“The conditions weren’t easy today because the pitch was rough and the temperature must have been in the high 30s.

“That is two strong efforts we’ve put together and we can build on it.”

Herbert described the pitch as “an incredibly difficult surface”.

“It was another solid performance on a pitch that didn’t help the fluency of our passing, and I couldn’t fault the work-rate and commitment that led to five quality goals,” Herbert said.

“After the first game on tour (a 3-0 win over United Sikkim) we had all the squad out training the following day because that is part of our physical program.

“There is some fatigue there but you will always encounter that at top level.”