Sydney won 4-2 on penalties after it finished 1-1 on 120th minute, O’Neill and Danny Vukovic were some of the heroes for the Sky Blues in the shootout.

It was described as a “fairy-tale” by the Irish-Aussie, as Johnny Warren Medallist Milos Ninkovic fired home the winning penalty to claim the 2017 championship.

O’Neill had a croaky voice due to excessive celebrating as he spoke to FourFourTwo, revealing the chatter between his team before the shootout that they knew they would win.

“It was evident to see, the coaches were talking, we couldn’t hear the fans, all we could hear was 16 boys out there all saying ‘we will win it, we’re going to win it, step up and hit your penalty, we’re going to win this’,” O’Neill told FourFourTwo.

“Sometimes in life things don’t happen the way you envisage them to, but it’s very fortunate we’ve got a group of players and people down at Sydney that truly believe and envisage great things happen.

“The positivity and belief just flowed through the team and Ninka taking the winning penalty was a fairy-tale because he did everything else during the season so it’s an unbelievable experience.”

O’Neill, along with many Sydney players felt it would’ve been an injustice to lose the grand final given their super-season.

Victory came out hard physically in the first half which led to Ninkovic saying post-game that their opponents wanted to stop their game plan.

O’Neill agreed but also said the belief was there to eventually run over the top of Victory.

It was a feisty first-half in the grand final...

“Their first-half tactics worked, they didn’t want to try and play football, they just wanted to try to upset what we were trying to do, put a foot in and be physical,” he said.

“There’s only so many times they can do that without us finally getting on top and playing and doing the things we’re good at.

“I loved it, getting down and dirty and I loved when they came out and they were having a go. It was good, that was what a grand final should be.

“In the second half and extra-time I think everyone saw the quality that came through in terms of our football and the chances we created.

“We went to a new level in the second-half and extra-time and in the end we should’ve won it in normal time.”

Sydney will play a friendly against Premier League side Liverpool at ANZ Stadium in a fortnight.