Melbourne Victory scored in the 9th minute, courtesy of an offside goal, and then produced a dogged defensive display which the home team couldn't breakdown.

Merrick accused referee Jarred Gillett of letting "too much go" resulting in a somewhat laboured spectable, particuly in the second half, but he saved most of his ammo for Victory's play.

"As I said at the press conference (Friday) we were hoping for a free flowing, enjoyable, entertaining game of football," he said.

"And despite how much we tried to do it, it just kept breaking down. If that’s the way you win, that’s the way you win, I would hope not to coach a team that plays like that."

Merrick, a fan of the VAR, wondered why it wasn't used to rule out Kosta Barbarouses' offside goal. Football Federation Australia has since admitted there was a technical glitch.

The 65-year-old added: "Once they went the goal up they weren’t going to let us play in the second half. It was very stop start from then on.

"They packed the defence, I think every ball out was a long ball, and we controlled the play. You just have to look at the stats – twice as many shots.

"(Victory goalkeeper) Lawrence Thomas pulled off two great saves in the first half, he’s a terrific goalkeeper, and some of the tackles that went in in the second half I was pretty disappointed about."

With just minutes remaining in the game Jets striker Roy O'Donovan was red carded for a boot to the jaw of Thomas and Merrick had no sympathy for the Irishman. 

"I didn’t see clearly (but) ...it was out of order if he did that.

"He got an elbow just below the eye (a stray arm by Besart Berisha) in the first half, and nothing happened with that one, but Roy should be sent off if there was a foot up on the goalkeeper."

An elbow from Besart Berisha leaves Roy O'Donovan with a shiner

The Jets were the fairytale story of the 2017/18 campaign, coming from wooden spooners last season to finish second and reach the decider. Merrick said he was enormously proud of the team.

"I’ve told the boys they’ve won," he said. "They’ve won the season froom that perspective. They’re winners in that they’ve done so well to come from bottom to go to the top and that’s a tremendous performance really.

"I think we’ve made enormous ground, we’ve really put ourselves on the A-League map. We’re not a team that’s easily beaten. We’ve won a lot of games, we’ve scored a lot of game and every team in the league we’ve beaten at least once. So the boys, it’s a credit to them for what they’ve achieved.

"We can build on this team and we can be in the finals next year, especially given that we’ve got 18 players resigned."

But he denied the team lacked Victory's big game experience.

"If stop-start and foul non-stop is big game experience well it worked for them," he said. "I just thought good football would win the game…but it didn’t."