Sean Walsh blogs on the Melbourne Victory for BPL. Click here if you wish to write on our A-League blog.

On the evidence available on Saturday night, I was wrong on two points:

1) Dugandzic by his performance last night has gone a long way to prove he is ready to impose himself on the league. He scored a brilliant goal and added a composed assist, if he can find the consistency that eluded him last season then Victory may have the find of the season.

2) Victory will find a way to score goals. Now we need to stop them. Muscat is not 30 any more and can't continue to allow simple errors against good teams. Berger must either threaten more going forward or greatly improve his defensive game to continue to be more than a bench player. Vargas appeared to have thrown off a substandard season last and Leijer continues to be solid.

The A-League entered this season on the back of little publicity in a weekend packed with superior quality sport. The first two games didn't provide anything to suggest the publicity would be generated through entertaining play. Perth and North Queensland started to turn that around with both an unexpected, entertaining and high scoring result.  Setting the stage for the Melbourne-Sydney grudge match. The FFA this morning is counting their blessings that this game didn't disappoint.

Sydney's full strength, although much changed squad versus Melbourne's injury ravaged belief in itself and its method of both play and recruiting. The end scoreline read 3-3 but Victory will take much confidence from as complete a footballing performance as they have presented to their fans in the first five years. This with the caveat of three comical pieces of defending, two of which resulted in goals and my logic strained for how the third didn't. Sydney were a worthy opponent but Melbourne controlled the game except for the last 10 minutes.  Sydney's threat was on the quick counter hoping to expose Muscat's ageing legs once again. As in fact they did for the first goal.

Credit must go to Ernie Merrick for this performance.

With the five strikers (Allsop, Fabiano, Thompson, Mrdja, Kruse) they have played in the last season all absent for varying reason, Hernandez was sacrificed early operating alone at the point and not able to get on the ball.  This made Musialik marking him redundant because there were two centre backs to do it.  With the result that three defenders were giving too much of their attention to just one player.  In the early stages Dugandzic, Pondlejak and Sukha all took advantage of this over reaction by getting plenty of touches. Victory appeared the better side without seriously threatening the Sydney goal. 0-0 looked a good result for them at this point as Sydney's quick counter created the more likely scoring situations.  One impediment Sydney faced was that Carle, their creative force, was completely blanketed by Brebner.

Muscat then gifted Sydney their opener and were then expected to sit on the 1-0 and winning by that scoreline. Victory didn't allow them to.  Changes were made that sparked Victory and unsettled their opponents. Pondlejak spent a sort time at the point freeing Hernandez to come deeper and into the game. Once he got a taste he had influence throughout the rest of the match.

Berger's defensive frailties were then exposed, apparently 1-0 was not enough of a handicap. Celeski was  introduced at the expense of a tiring Sukha.  He immediately had an impact providing more drive than Sukha after a good first 15 minutes.  Dugandzic also moved to the point with Pondlejak moving to the right to assist Celeski in terrorising Byun.  The change allowing Pondlejak to provide three tantalising crosses for two goals. The first for Broxham to score a lucky goal (in truth it was probably an own goal). Broxham is a player who puts the holding in holding midfielder but deserved his luck by gambling with a forward run and connecting with something, anything at the penalty spot. The second cross was only overshadowed by Dugandzic's delightful first touch and calm finish.

When Dugandzic, by now the undoubted recipient of Man of the Match honours, ran onto a testing ball into the left channel he still had plenty to do.  Passing up the shot from a tight angle he used excellent close control to bamboozle the keeper and defence presenting an easy opportunity for the supporting Celeski to finish.

Sydney then scored from Cole's well taken free kick that wasn't.  The first sign that Victory may miss Langerak came in the first competitive game without him.  Petkovic will be solid (despite his keystone cops moment in this game). He did little wrong for Cole's goal except for not having the former custodian's height.  Victory supporters can only hope teams don't exploit this as ruthlessly as North Queensland exploited Velaphi's deficiencies.

Sydney had the better of the last 10 minutes and looked the more likely but Victory did occasionally threaten from corners and free kicks.

And so it finished 3-3. Another chapter in what may continue to be Victory's fiercest rivalry, at least in the short term.

Victory leave Sydney happy with the performance and confident that they can be a significant factor in the finals this year. All the talk of signing another striker can wait for at least a few days.