A-League: Adelaide 0 Wellington 1

Wellington Phoenix have all but secured an A-League finals berth thanks to a 1-0 triumph against Adelaide United on Saturday night.

Chris Greenacre’s 35th minute header saw the Phoenix move four points clear of the seventh-placed Melbourne Heart and seven clear of eighth-placed Sydney FC, with the Wellington club still to play two fixtures.

The match made a frenetic start with Travis Dodd seeing his shot inside the first 15 seconds just flash wide, while Dylan McAllister’s shot from a tight angle crept through the legs of Eugene Galekovic but was cleared off the line inside two minutes.

Dodd and Marco Rojas went close as the hunt for a goal continued but both sides lost a player to injury before the half-hour mark, with Adelaide’s Cassio and Wellington’s Vince Lia leaving the pitch due to quad and hamstring injuries respectively.

Cassio’s injury caused a defensive re-shuffle with debutant Dario Bodrusic forced into left-back and he did not look comfortable dealing with the impressive Marco Rojas, who hit an early cross that curled around the defence and allowed for former Tranmere Rover Greenacre to meet the ball with a diving header from six yards that left Galekovic stranded.

Adelaide nearly hit back when Van Dijk turned Iain Ramsay’s cross over the bar from inside the six-yard box, but Rojas nearly provided a second goal for the visitors after he beat Bodrusic on the by-line and centred for Greenacre, only to see the striker’s tame effort hit straight at Galekovic.

Vukovic was required to come off his line to deny Paul Reid just before half-time, while Wellington’s Nick Ward, Tim Brown and Adelaide’s Usucar all had decent attempts on goal from distance just after the break.

Adelaide nearly produced an equaliser after 67 minutes when a sublime Marcos Flores ball found it’s way to Travis Dodd, but despite Dodd’s shot trickling past Vukovic, it could not beat Jade North who desperately turned the ball onto the crossbar.

Ward again tested Galekovic from distance while Van Dijk fired just wide from the edge of the penalty area, before shooting across the face of goal just two minutes later.

But with the pressure on in the dying stages, Wellington were able to hang on for a well-deserved victory that should see them compete in the finals for the second year running.