Northern Spirit's Matthew Langdon showed why he is regarded so highly by coach Graham Arnold, setting up his side's 2-0 national soccer league win against Sydney United at the Sydney United Sports Centre.
Langdon, operating on the left side of midfield, provided two telling crosses for Robbie Slater in the 53rd minute and then David Seal on the hour, for the goals which proved the difference.
"He did what he had to do in the second half," Arnold said after the match.
"I was disappointed with his first half but he showed what he could do with those two brilliant pieces of play to set up our two goals."
However, it could have been a different story had United not missed two relatively easy goal scoring chances in the 49th and 58th minutes.
United should have taken the lead when Tom Pondeljak set up Joe Moric but his shot from 10 metres was blocked on the line by Matthew Bingley and cleared away to safety.
That miss proved costly when Langdon, after playing a one-two with Robbie Enes, beat the defence before cutting the ball back to his captain Slater, whose mistimed shot went in off the left-hand post.
Shortly afterwards, it was another case of who could get their shot on target when United should have equalised after a one-two between Ray Younis and Mario Jerman which resulted in Younis having a clear shot at goal but instead hit it into the side netting.
Again Langdon was able to get past the defence and his pinpoint cross to the edge of the six yard box was perfectly met by Spirit's new signing Seal, who made no mistake with his header.
The game took a new twist with just over 15 minutes to go when Enes, who thought he should have been awarded a penalty, was sent off after saying a few words to the referee.
That put pressure on the Spirit defence.
However, United were unable to create any chances of note.
The first half was a fairly ordinary affair with both sides turning over possession regularly but Spirit's Paul Henderson did manage to make one terrific save on the stroke of halftime denying Ante Moric a goal from a 30 metre drive that looked headed for the top right hand corner.
United coach David Ratcliffe was not overly disappointed with his side's performance saying "the difference was they took their chances and we didn't".