A-League: Adelaide 8 North Queensland 1

Adelaide United set a new A-League record after thrashing a hapless North Queensland Fury 8-1 at Hindmarsh Stadium on Friday.

Marcos Flores and Sergio van Dijk both netted hat-tricks in the rout, which saw the Reds become the first team in A-League history to score more than six goals in a match.

Flores opened the scoring on four minutes when van Dijk received the ball out wide from Iain Ramsay and whipped in a cross for the Argentine who outjumped his marker to head past Justin Pasfield.

After the opening goal the Fury outplayed the Reds and should have equalised through David Williams who missed when it seemed easier to score.

Just before the half hour Flores was involved again when, after a series of one-twos, he continued running and released Dodd with a delightful through ball.

The Reds skipper ran onto the pass from the top of the box curled his shot into the side net leaving Pasfield no chance to make it 2-0.

In the 37th minute the pair combined again for Flores’ second after some brilliant skill from Dodd.

Dodd baulked his defender before looking up and firing across a cut back for Flores to run on to and slam into the back of the net.

The Argentine’s superb vision and passing created United’s fourth five minutes later, again releasing Dodd down the right.

He muscled his way in front of his opponent and raced towards goal and cracked low and hard only for the Fury keeper to get down low and parry the shot.

Pasfield could only push the ball into the path of Ramsay who stormed in to smash the rebound into the net.

A minute after half-time van Dijk got on the score sheet after another wonderful build up out of defence.

In the 67th minute, the league’s leading scorer got his 15th of the season after another sublime pass from Flores.

United replaced Francisco Usucar and Nigel Boogaard with Paul Reid and Robert Cornthwaite and the substitutions appeared to upset the tide with North Queensland grabbing a consolation through Panagiotis Nikas.

It mattered little when van Dijk completed the A-League record for most goals in a game by one team with his second-half hat-trick in the 83rd minute.

Flores’ third and United’s eighth equalled the league record for the most number of goals in a game (9).