Vicious kick mars grand final

Melbourne Victory have snuffed out Newcastle’s A-League fairytale at the final hurdle, defeating the Jets 1-0 to win a record fourth A-League title.

Kosta Barbarouses scored the quickest ever grand-final goal in the ninth minute to seal a controversial season finale underscored by the video assistant referee’s failure to pick up offside Victory players in the process.

And Saturday night’s match in Newcastle ended with a sickening injury-time incident, when Roy O’Donovan was dismissed for ramming his studs into the face of Joe Marston Medallist Lawrence Thomas, who finished the match with his face covered in bandages.

The Jets striker’s high kick collected the Victory goalkeeper flush in the jaw as he came out to collect the ball two minutes from fulltime, and referee Jarred Gillett issued a straight red card with a lengthy ban sure to follow.

It was a horrible end to the first grand final of any major code to be played in a regional town.

Victory coach Kevin Muscat said ‘‘it was just lucky someone didn’t get really badly hurt’’ although Jets captain Nigel Boogaard defended his teammate.

‘‘To be honest with you, from where I was – and I was right behind it – the ball’s in the air, he’s sticking a foot at it,’’ Boogaard said.

‘‘It’s a grand final, there’s five minutes to go, and Lawrence Thomas has come out and been brave.

‘‘To be honest I would have stuck a foot at it.

‘‘All those players in the opposition team, if they were 1-0 down While the Jets dominated all the first-half statistics they couldn’t overcome the allpowerful Thomas, whose gargantuan saves inspired his side to exorcise the ghosts of last season’s grand-final penaltyshootout loss to Sydney FC.

They went behind early when Leroy George’s swooping free kick found the head of James Donachie, who knocked it down for Barbarouses to fire past Glen Moss via a deflection off Johnny Koutroumbis.

Replays showed that Donachie – and two team-mates – had been offside.