Krishna’s tribute as Phoenix win

Roy Krishna pointed his hands to the sky before dropping to his knees in prayer, in a tribute to the victims of Christchurch’s terrorist attack.

The star Wellington Phoenix striker, who revealed on social media the pain of playing football yesterday, just two days after 50 innocent people lost their lives in the devastating mass shooting, took just 12 minutes to open the scoring in a 3-1 win against Western Sydney Wanderers.

The new A-League Golden Boot leader, with 15 goals to his name, picked off an errant pass from Tate Russell and fired home on a tight angle to give the Phoenix the perfect start to the match — the first at Westpac Stadium for 50 days.

He then walked past the dead ball line and dropped to his knees. The Fijian international, whose wife Naziah Ali is Muslim, paid a classy tribute to the victims of the worst terrorist attack New Zealand has seen, after a gunman opened fire on two Christchurch mosques.

The Phoenix doubled their lead when Mandi fired a superb freekick only 11 minutes later, and went 3-0 up when David Williams curled home the third in the 33rd minute.

The Wanderers did eventually score with Mitchell Duke nodding the ball past Filip Kurto in the 85th minute.

The Phoenix win was marred when Krishna was controversially sent off in stoppage time, shown a second yellow for what appeared to be an accidental elbow on Raul Llorente.