The 22-year-old put the game beyond all doubt after his sizzling free kick claimed the third goal for the Sky Blues leaving Andrew Redmayne frozen with seven minutes remaining.

But O’Neill could sense Redmayne’s mannerisms as captain Alex Brosque was initially going to take the free kick before changing his mind at the last minute.

“When I put the ball down, Brosquey said he wanted it and I said ‘yeah no worries Brosquey, on you go’,” O’Neill said.

 “But then I said to him ‘hey, he’s leaning over to his left’ and Brosquey says ‘do you want it?’ and I said ‘yeah, give us a go’ and I just put it down and the rest is history, so I couldn’t be happier.

“I have been practicing in training, the whole of last year I have been. Last year I was sitting on the post too many times and putting the ball down tonight I thought ‘right, if I just focus on just getting up and over, less power and we’ll see what happens’ and it worked.”

O’Neill also said the win over Wanderers topped the list of memories in his short career and added the vibe internally was a happy one.

The midfielder also spoke of the atmosphere at a record breaking attendance with the first derby at ANZ Stadium.

“It’ll probably be the best experience personally that I’ve ever had, as well as an individual scoring, just to play in that atmosphere and play in a team that wants to do something this year, it’s a really good feeling at the moment,” he said.

“I know it’s round one, I know it’s early, but if we can continue this… I don’t know what to call it, there’s something there we think Championship teams are built on and that’s what we believe we are.

“Going into round three, we need to keep this going and we need to keep improving because there’s still aspects where we can definitely improve on, but it’s definitely an exciting time ahead.”

Sydney FC return to Moore Park to play Central Coast Mariners next week for round two of the A-League.