Wellington Phoenix will host Newcastle Jets at Westpac Stadium in two weeks time after overcoming Perth Glory 4-2 on penalties in a tense Hyundai A-League minor semi-final.
With the two teams locked 1-1 after 120 minutes of football it came down spot kicks and goalkeeper Liam Reddy – who kept his side in the match throughout with some smart saves – saved attempts by Naum Sekulovski and Scott Bulloch to ensure his team another week of finals football in its first foray into the A-League post-season.
Paul Ifill, Andrew Durante, Tim Brown and Adrian Caceres all converted for the Phoenix, while Steven McGarry and Daniel McBreen were successful for Glory.
Not even the sending off of defender Jon McKain in extra time for a second bookable offence could dampen the delight for the home side after a gritty display against a Perth team bolstered by the return to the starting line-up of skipper Jacob Burns and Chris Coyne and Mile Sterjovski to the bench.
"I'm proud of the boys and I thought we probably created the better chances of the game," said Perth coach Dave Mitchell.
"We all know it's not easy to come here. I'm proud of their achievement this year."
It's a sad way to go but the game plan and the way we played was great."
A delighted Ricki Herbert admitted it had been tough sitting through the shoot-out.
"I can really sympathise with Dave and the Perth guys. They've had a hell of a season and it was always going to be a tough one."
"It's not always the best way to go out but the flip side of that is that we're through and we get another shot which is great."
It was no surprise the match, which began with a moment's silence in memory of former Socceroo Ian Gray, went to extra time and penalties given how tight the two previous encounters between the teams at Westpac Stadium had been this season.
The teams largely battled it out in midfield for the opening 30 minutes with neither side able to get the crucial breakthrough and it was the bone-crunching tackles that initially drew the biggest reaction from the vocal record Wellington crowd of 24,278.
The physical nature of the contest did not dissipate the whole match and referee Strebre Delovski dished out a total of seven yellow cards and one red - four to Perth and three to Wellington - over the 120 minutes.
It wasn't until the 12th minute that the first real shot on target came but Tando Velaphi easily dealt with Paul Ifill's effort.
Play quickly switched to the other end as Todd Howarth dispossessed Hearfield – appearing to catch him in the face in the process – and broke clear into the box but McKain did enough to put the Glory midfielder off his stride and the danger was cleared.
Bertos then had a crack himself after stepping around Burns but his long range shot flew well wide across the face of goal.
Perth then enjoyed their best spell of the first half. Firstly Jamie Coyne robbed Ifill and broke clear. His pass found Daniel McBreen who set up Scott Neville but his weak shot was easily saved by Liam Reddy.
A lack of concentration by the Phoenix defence allowed Neville another clear chance a minute later but again Reddy was up to the task – getting