“There was a lot of pressure on myself, the players, the owners, the fans but we’ve all pulled together, training has been fantastic and we had a good vibe and a good feel that we’d get a result today,” said coach Mitchell.

“It was a great performance and I’m pleased for everyone who is associated with the club.”

Evergreen striker Jamie Harnwell was the hero with two goals as Glory secured a richly-deserved 2-1 victory following the testing few weeks for the club.

“It was probably the most nervous I’ve been before a game, there was a lot riding on me going back up front and I didn’t sleep much last night,” said Harnwell.

“To come out and get a half chance early then the goal from a great tap from Nikita (Rukavytsya) settled the nerves pretty quickly. I was glad to score but it was even better that we won, it’s a great feeling for the boys.”

Several weeks of intense scrutiny on Perth was the backdrop for this match but a crisis meeting between top level management and players translated into a season best performance and a catalyst for more to come.

“You can talk all you want, and we’ve done that over the last two weeks, but you have to go and put in the performances out there and that’s what we did today,” Harnwell said.

“Whether that’s a season defining moment we’ll have to see next week but if we put in the same level of work rate then the class shows.”

Mitchell added: “We’ve had some influential players missing and that has caused some wobbles in the early part of the season and it’s nice to get them all back and we looked very solid.

“I think today we consistently did well, played some good football and created quite a few chances against the ‘bling, bling’ and it was nice to beat them.”

Sydney now face an uphill task to rediscover their early season form after a run of disappointing results and now face a trip to league leaders Melbourne Victory next weekend.

“It’s a disappointing result, ” said coach John Kosmina. “Things didn’t go our way today but we have to put that behind us quickly and prepare for another tough game on the road against Melbourne next weekend.”