McKay scored Brisbane's second goal in the victory at Bluetongue Stadium, after Kosta Barbarouses had finished clinically to put the Roar ahead early in the second half.

Brisbane now host the Mariners at Suncorp Stadium next Saturday in the second-leg of their Major Semi Final firmly in the box seat to claiming a home Grand Final.

"We're going to get a lot of support back in Brisbane now," McKay told Fox Sports after the game.

"It's great to come away from home and score two and concede none. I'm very proud.

"It means we can get a bigger crowd next week. We need Brisbane to show up, we need that support to try and get the home grand final."

McKay added: "Everyone's putting a bit of pressure on us at the moment and we dealt with that. Central Coast are a very good side, they had their chances, in the first-half they pinned us back a bit, but full credit to our guys, we worked very hard the whole game. Two good goals in the second-half got us through."

Central Coast skipper Alex Wilkinson admitted he was disappointed after going down to a Brisbane side he said were more clinical.

"To be fair I didn't think we played too bad," Wilkinson said. "We had a lot of chances tonight and Brisbane were a bit more clinical when it mattered.

"If we'd put away our chances it would've been a different game. We can take a lot of heart from that.

"Obviously it's only half-time, we go up to Suncorp next week. It's going to be tough now. But we're by no means out of it.

"If they scored two goals tonight we can score two goals next week. So it's by no means over."

The Mariners haven't beaten the Roar this season and have lost three of their four clashes this campaign, but Wilkinson believes Central Coast have made ground on the premiers throughout the season and holds hope of turning around the tie.

"I think we've closed the gap. There's no two-ways about that," he said.

"I thought we knocked the ball around quite well in patches, I thought in the second-half we were quite good. We had a lot of chances but were just unlucky to not put them away tonight.

"On another night it might've been a different story. At the end of the day, Brisbane were too clinical and two good finishes."