Heart take points over pride

Friday night’s 3-2 A-League derby win over Melbourne Victory means more to the Melbourne Heart than just bragging rights.

Coach John van ‘t Schip and goal-scoring hero Matt Thompson said the success was more value to their season than to the rivalry with their cross-town opponents.

Heart notched their sixth win in their past seven matches to power to second in the table, behind only Central Coast Mariners, despite trailing early in an entertaining match.

But while a win over Victory is always sweet, Thompson, who scored two goals in three minutes to turn the game on its head late in the first half, said it was a sign of the maturity of the team that it was not all about beating the traditional A-League powerhouse.

“A win tonight against anyone puts us second and here we are sitting second. I sat out there seven or eight weeks ago, we were sitting last and everyone was talking about what was going wrong with us,” he said.

“In-house we knew we were heading in the right direction and things didn’t pan out for us. It was a just a matter of time and John (van ‘t Schip) kept saying it would come.”

“Luck has come our way in a couple of games and here we are. We are not there yet, we still have to improve and the first half an hour wasn’t good enough, but we are finding ways to win and we are becoming a hard team to beat.”

Van ‘t Schip feels like the club had made huge steps this year, but isn’t sure that the Heart can call themselves championship contenders just yet, despite their lofty position on the ladder.

“We are here and we are competitive and it’s a long road to the championship,” he said.

“If you look at all the games we are winning, it’s close every time. We have to work very hard, and looking at the first 30 minutes this evening, we really had problems.”

Opposite number Mehmet Durakovic rued missed opportunities as the Victory slipped to sixth on the table.

“We created enough chances in the first 20, 25 minutes to be at least two-up,” he said.

“It’s disappointing, but that’s football – you take your chances, you win – you don’t, you lose.”

“They weren’t really in it before that.”

“We made a couple of mistakes, they hit us on the counter-attack and we copped two goals.”

“It’s disappointing because we’ve got enough experienced players not to do that.”

Victory captain Adrian Leijer said there were no excuses for the result.

“We weren’t good enough on the day,” said Leijer.

“It’s disappointing for the fans more than anything because we know how much it means to them.”

“We’re very gutted, but all we can do is get back out there and try to get back to winning ways as soon as we can.”