Missing six front-line players to international duty, Wellington have roared in to life in the A-League with a 5-0 win over Newcastle at Westpac Stadium last night.
Roly Bonevacia celebrates a goal. Photo: Photosport
First-half goals to Kosta Barbarouses and Gui Finkler set up the win for the Phoenix.
See how the match unfolded here.
Matthew Ridenton added a third, early in the second half before Jets defender Jason Hoffman completed a miserable return from a week's suspension with an inexplicable 66th minute own goal.
Roly Bonevacia put the icing on the cake for the hosts with the fifth goal, on 86 minutes.
Wellington went in to the match just one point ahead of eighth-placed Newcastle on the ladder and without top scorer Roy Krishna.
Yet they managed their most prolific performance of the season, adding insult to injury by keeping the Jets scoreless for the second time in three matches.
The Phoenix remain seventh on the ladder, five points adrift of sixth place with three games remaining.
Wellington co-coach Des Buckingham paid tribute to a strong team effort, saying it had revived their hopes of a place in the finals series.
"All across the pitch, everyone stuck to task, and they stuck to task for the full 93 minutes, and it showed," he said.
"We're not dead yet, we've got a pulse.
"We've got three important games coming up and they'll be three hard, tough games.
"But we've shown what these players are capable of doing."
Dejected Newcastle coach Mark Jones was making no excuses, with Sunday's drubbing following on from last week's 4-0 loss at Melbourne City.
"It's defensively been poor, then when we've had the moments to perhaps get something and get ourselves back in the game, we haven't taken them," Jones said.
"It's clearly not good enough."
Wellington's hard-working midfield set up the 24th minute goal that broke the deadlock.
Vince Lia's long pass found Barbarouses, who turned his defender inside-out and unleashed a stinging right-foot strike into the bottom left-hand corner, for his fifth goal of the season.
Barbarouses featured 12 minutes later in Wellington's second, swinging in a cross from the left for Gui Finkler to head home at the near post.
Ridenton, on at half-time for an injured Ryan Lowry, extended the lead on 49 minutes after a Dylan Fox header, from a Finkler corner, crashed off the crossbar and was only cleared by Nabbout to his feet.
Under no pressure, Hoffman incredibly knocked Hamish Watson's left-wing cross past stranded goalkeeper Jack Duncan before Bonevacia's low effort took a slight deflection on its way into the net.
The defeat all but ended the Jets' slim finals hopes.
- AAP
