"I haven't come away disappointed," Merrick said after the game. "It was a great learning experience for our players. I thought a 32,000 crowd at this venue was a fantastic atmosphere and it's a credit to our supporters.

"I feel we should've played better football, but I looked at the number of players we had out and the number of youngsters we had in who did their job. I'm not going to criticise those youngsters, it's something they'll learn from. We have to learn to play under these circumstances to be a better all-round team.

"At the moment we've got five senior players out. Once we get them in we're a different team but it was great to see the development of these youngsters."

Merrick added he felt his side struggled to deal with the pressure of the occasion after going two goals up inside the opening 35 minutes.

"I thought we started well, particularly in midfield. In fact they were pulling shirts and chasing us and we were causing them all sorts of problems," he said.

"Several lead-up plays, a good goal by Danny (Allsopp) and the terrific free-kick by Carlos (Hernandez). We had them on the back foot. But I think the difference was playing under pressure and I thought the crowd tonight, which was the record for the season, was absolutely fantastic.

"The atmosphere out there was tremendous, but our younger boys in particular have to learn how to play under that pressure. I thought the younger guys really struggled. But we hung in there.

"Towards the end of the game really all they did was bang in long-high balls and we dealt with them pretty well and nearly caught them on the break a couple of times.

"It was a good performance from our senior players and a learning experience from our less experienced players."

Merrick also revealed he didn't see Kevin Muscat's tackle on Adrian Zahra which saw the Victory stalwart sent off.

"I didn't see the tackle, I was at the far end. Kevin is Kevin, he does a good job for us. He's been sent off but I haven't seen the tackle," he said.

Fifth-placed Victory's next match is away to North Queensland Fury on Wednesday.