Merrick was delighted with his team's third straight win, which put Victory back on top of the ladder - at least until the round is completed on Monday.

"To be honest I thought the score could have been better for us because we hit the post and we hit the cross bar and we could have scored three or four goals," Merrick said.

"We are taking our chances more and more people are getting involved in scoring goals and now we have got a centre-back (in Leijer) scoring goals.

"It's just great to see Adrian improving week in, week out since he joined us again and he sure is enjoying playing full-time football again."

"We have been talking about Adrian getting into forward positions from corner kicks and it was terrific to see him scoring a goal."

Roar coach Frank Farina accepted the decision by the referee not to send Leijer off for an earlier tackle on Henrique, which meant he stayed on the field to score the winning goal and his first goal for Melbourne in four seasons and his first since re-joining the club from English Premier League team Fulham earlier this season.

"The only problem I have (with Leijer staying on the pitch and escaping a second yellow card for the tackle on Henrique) is he scores the winning goal but then maybe someone else would have scored the winning goal anyway," Farina said.

"He (Leijer) had been booked already but I thought the referee had a great game to be honest."