The Sydney FC coach reserved special praise for Melbourne, insisting Ernie Merrick’s side was the hardest he had faced during the tournament.

Culina said: “We’ve been forced to play Queensland when they were full strength and I think they’ll be ok, but not as good as Melbourne.

“We played Central Coast at full strength and you know what to expect with them - they will snap at you all game.

"And then we played Newcastle, but we beat ourselves to be honest, we gave away three goals.

“But Melbourne is the best club I think we’ve played.”

Culina praised the spirit of his players after the A-League glamour club recorded their first win against Melbourne Victory at Olympic Park.

“I’m really proud of the boys because they showed a lot of character and stuck to the game plan,” he said after the game.

“We knew that coming here would be difficult and I’m really pleased to get the win.”

Sydney’s win ensured the inaugural A-League champions avoided the ignominy of completing the pre-season campaign in last place, indicating the harbourside club have turned the corner in time for the start of the season.

While Culina acknowledged his team are well behind in terms of preparation, he said the result gave his side a much needed confidence boost ahead of round one against Central Coast.

“We needed a result as Melbourne did to get our confidence back,” he said.

“We were missing some key players so we can only get better, especially when you bear in mind we only started training about a month ago ... but unfortunately all the injuries sort of put us back a little bit.

“I think in all honesty, we are about three or four weeks off where we should be."

He added: "We will probably have to graft results as we did against Melbourne in the first couple of rounds.

"When all the players are available, we can start to play some good football.”