Five of the best from Hannah Wilkinson was enough to settle the second Melbourne Derby of the season.
The New Zealand international was near unplayable at the pointy end of Melbourne City's attack, scoring five goals to sink reigning champions Melbourne Victory with one of the great all-time A-League Women's individual performances.
After getting the monkey off the back last week, Wilkinson was on fire from the word go, scoring a first-half hat-trick in the space of 26 minutes before adding another two just after halftime to seal the 5-1 scoreline.
As a result, the 29-year-old has now taken a commanding four goal lead on top of the Golden Boot leaderboard and is only the second player in A-League Women's history to score five goals in a single game after Kate Gill did so in 2014.
"She was five-star," Melbourne City assistant coach Dario Vidosic said post-game.
"We are happy for her. It was always coming, she was excellent in round-one. She was again excellent, putting herself in great positions."
It was the first time an individual player has scored five goals in an A-League Women match.
The City players also withstood the distractions of a potential covid scare after a player tested positive twice to a rapid antigen test pre-game.
"So that happened this morning, where two rapid tests came back positive for one player that was in a house with about seven of the other girls," Vidosic said.
"That certainly put everything into a bit of disarray and we had a set of girls from that house in a separate change room so we couldn't have a team talk or anything – to keep that distancing.
"It was a bit of a crazy day but I think after that you have to give the girls so much applause for that. So many distractions, so much uncertainty and even now not knowing what the next few days will hold,
"Thankfully for now there are no other cases so I think the girls, they wanted to play, they didn't want to postpone either."
Unlike what they did in the first Derby of the season a fortnight ago, Victory never looked like mounting a fightback against their city-rivals as they were beaten to the punch at every turn by City's hardworking defensive effort and quick-fire counter attacks.
Maja Markovski managed to pull one back late for the home side but it only proved to be a mere consolation prize in the dying moments.
In the weeks since captain Kayla Morrison went down with a season-ending knee injury, Victory's enormous defensive frailty that had slowly become more apparent in previous games came to the fore against City's powerful frontline.
Wilkinson along with strike partner Holly McNamara tormented Victory's backline with their constant pressure, forcing their defence into a number of errors which led directly to goals.
The result also means City leapfrog Victory into second on goal difference while also sitting equal first with Sydney FC who are a goal clear of Rado Vidosic's side on the table and are yet to play this round.
