The Newcastle Jets will end the season in a battle to avoid the wooden spoon after a desperate Melbourne Victory handed them a club-worst defeat in the form of a 7-0 rout at No.2 Sportsground on Sunday.
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While Victory improved to 20 points and third place with one round remaining, the Jets were left languishing in eighth spot on seven points, just three above their final-round opponents Adelaide.
Newcastle looked off the pace from the outset and were never in the contest. Victory made the Jets defence look pedestrian for a lot of the game and had the hosts under immense pressure every time they touched the ball.
The visitors opened the scoring in the third minute through New Zealand international Annalie Longo and by the seventh she had a brace. By half-time English international Natasha Dowie (33rd) and American Darian Jenkins (40th) had also scored for a 4-0 lead then the onslaught continued after the break.
Jenkins found her second in the 59th, Jets defender Cassidy Davis headed into Newcastle's net for an own goal in the 69th and Melina Ayres completed the demolition in the 83rd.
The performance, in their last game at home for the season, was a far cry from Newcastle's first. The Jets opened their 2019-20 campaign with an historic 1-1 draw against now unbeaten minor premiers Melbourne City in round one.
It was the first time Newcastle had taken a point off the league heavyweights.
On Sunday they also made history - but this time there was nothing to celebrate. The club's previous worst W-League losses were 6-0 defeats in the inaugural W-League season in 2009 then in 2013 at the hands of Brisbane and Victory respectively.
They must now travel to Adelaide to take on the last-placed Reds on Thursday night in a match that will determine the wooden spoon.
The match was Newcastle's first in three weeks due to the bye and international window but Jets coach Ash Wilson was not making excuses for "a disappointing performance by our standards".
"We were really excited to be playing at home in front of our home crowd and I think we'd taken a lot of confidence from our [previous] Adelaide game and there was a lot of positivity going into this game," Wilson said.
"But little things that we asked the girl to do probably weren't executed the way that we wanted them to be executed ... We'll go back to the drawing board from here and just move on because at the end of the day we've got to play Adelaide on Thursday night, so we've got a short turnaround.
"We've got a couple of training sessions in between so we need to make sure that we learn from this but move forward. For us we're still wanting to finish up as high as we can, so a win against Adelaide is a must."
A vocal 1321-strong crowd turned out for Newcastle's final home game.
Victory went into the match after a rout of their own after losing 4-0 to City in round 12.
The win elevated them above fourth-placed Western Sydney (19), who lost 4-0 to City (31) on Thursday night. Fifth-placed Brisbane improved to 17 points with a 5-0 win over Canberra (13) on Sunday. On Saturday night, Perth (11) produced a 2-1 upset over second-placed Sydney (22).
Final-round match-ups pit Victory against the Sky Blues, Roar against City and Wanderers against Perth.
"From [Victory's] point of view, I told the girls that they were going to come out really strong because they did have that big loss to Melbourne City last week and for them to be able to cement their spot in the top four, they were playing for big prizes," Wilson said.
"The way they came out was just a mix of that desperation and that experience. They showed a lot of experience all over the park and just showed a lot of strength."
Longo's first goal came when she headed into the net off a corner. Her second was through a Jets' failure to clear the ball out of the 18-yard box. Longo swooped onto it then breezed past Newcastle defender Gema Simon before beating goalkeeper Claire Coelho from the edge of the six-yard box.
Dowie's was a classy finish in the 33rd. Angela Beard's searching ball from the right sideline bounced in front of Dowie on the edge of the 18-yard box and the English international flicked it over Coelho who was stranded off her line.
Jenkins' first goal was a close-range header after a goalmouth scramble in which the ball hit the crossbar twice. Her second was another header from close range which she was able to score without being under any pressure.
Ayres scored at the near post off a Victory corner in the 83rd minute.
The absence of injured Jets co-captain Clare Wheeler was glaring. The midfielder has consistently been one of Newcastle's best and a steadying influence again this season but missed the match through an ankle injury sustained in their 2-0 win over the Reds on February 1.
