Adelaide United coach Marco Kurz hopes his Socceroo counterpart Graham Arnold will take a chance on his red-hot attacker Craig Goodwin after his second brace in a week.
Goodwin followed up his double in the Reds' FFA Cup final win on Tuesday night with two more in Sunday's 3-0 win over Central Coast in Gosford.
He enjoyed a little good fortune with both of Sunday's goals, as Adelaide notched their first A-League win after two draws.
His first-half header after nine minutes deflected off Mariners defender Kye Rowles.
Goodwin's second from a 20-metre free-kick, in the 56th minute, slipped through the hands of Mariners goalkeeper Ben Kennedy.
With the Socceroos playing matches later this month against South Korea and Lebanon, Goodwin could hardly have timed his goalscoring purple patch better.
"He performed very well; he's fit; he's a special player. I'm very happy to have him in our team,'" Kurz said.
"I hope Arnie will give him a chance."
Arnold attended the game at Central Coast Stadium, just as he did the cup final in Adelaide.
Goodwin, returning to Australia after two seasons with Dutch club Sparta Rotterdam, has played three times for the Socceroos, but not since 2016.
The Mariners who, like Adelaide, had drawn their first two games, were torn apart in the first quarter by Adelaide's smooth and incisive counter-attacking.
"It was our plan, because the spaces in the back-four line we created, exactly the attacking movements we wanted and planned in training," Kurz said.
Goodwin had a very able accomplice in Young Socceroos forward Apostolos Stamatelopoulos.
Just back from representing Australia in the AFC U19 Championship in Indonesia, Stamatelopoulos provided an accurate cross for Goodwin's first goal.
Goodwin reciprocated seven minutes later with an assist for Stamatelopoulos.
Kurz was disappointed his side didn't add another three or four goals.
He knew his team had the fitness to back up from the FFA Cup triumph and the hunger to keep winning and said making the finals was their next goal.
Former Mariners goalkeeper Paul Izzo had little to do for the first 70 minutes.
But within 60 seconds, Izzo pushed away a drive from Tommy Oar and, from the corner, saved a header from substitute Connor Pain.
"In the past, this is all too normal losing 3-0. We can't accept that and I will not accept it," Mariners coach Mike Mulvey said.
"Absolutely, it's a wake-up call, but I didn't see it coming. We trained pretty well during the week.
"The main issue was that we didn't get to grips with central midfield; we didn't get hold of Isaias.
Australian Associated Press
