Australia's harbour city is sky blue through and through after a rampant Sydney FC monstered bitter rivals Western Sydney to run home with a 4-1 A-League Men victory.
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Travelling to enemy territory at CommBank Stadium, the Sky Blues wasted no time to embarrass Wanderers coach Marko Rudan in his first match back since serving a two-game ban for his explosive comments on referees.
Sydney may have been without influential skipper Luke Brattan on Saturday, but it mattered little for Ufuk Talay's men, who are now undefeated in seven games.
And as if boasting bragging rights wasn't enough, the Sky Blues have also leapfrogged their cross-city rivals into fifth spot on the table.
Stand-in captain Rhyan Grant lit up the stadium in the third minute of their wet-weather skirmish with an electric header following Joe Lolley's corner.
Before the Wanderers could regroup, Sydney doubled their lead four minutes later thanks to a handball by Nicolas Milanovic in the penalty area.
Fabio Gomes took the penalty and found the back of the net, bamboozling Western Sydney goalkeeper Daniel Margush with a staggered run-up.
"The two early goals really hurt their spirits," Talay said.
"This is the way we want to play.
"We want to be the protagonist and make sure we're defending forward, and if we're going to fall over, we're going to fall forward."
Playing in front of an empty stand after their supporters walked out in the opening 20 minutes, a bad pass to Lachlan Brook made Rudan's frustration worse.
Young defensive midfielder Corey Hollman was able to steal the ball in their attacking half, allowing Robert Mak to put the game to bed.
The Slovakian launched it home in the 50th minute and made a bee-line to the Wanderers' fans for a self-indulgent gloat.
Not yet done adding more salt to the wound, another poor pass by Thomas Beadling to Margush gave Sydney a goal to spare.
Under pressure, Beadling's ball deflected off Margush's boot to land at the feet of Gomes and gift the Brazillian a brace in the 59th minute.
Gomes could have made it 3-0 for Sydney in the first half after another faulty kick to Jorrit Hendrix from Margush in front of goal, but the keeper managed to redeem himself.
Zachary Sapsford pulled one back for the Wanderers at 72 minutes, and while it may not have salvaged points, the consolation goal did deny their foes a clean sheet.
Even sweeter for Western Sydney was that it was registered as an own goal to Jake Girdwood-Reich.
"It's just one of those games," Rudan said.
"It's about regrouping. One game is not going to define our season."
Australian Associated Press
