English striker Matt Derbyshire has starred with a hat-trick to help deliver Macarthur's first home victory at the end of an enormous week for the A-League's newest club.
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The 4-0 victory over Adelaide United at Campbelltown Stadium capped off seven days in which the club picked up seven points across three games.
It moved the Bulls into the top two on the A-League ladder after eight games, just one point shy of first-placed Central Coast.
Displaying high energy despite torrential rain, the Bulls pulled off the big win from 0-all at halftime just three days after beating Brisbane 2-0 at Redcliffe.
"It's a big week when you think about playing Wanderers on Saturday here, travelling to Brisbane who had won four in a row, had an excellent home record particularly and then to come here, knowing that we needed to get a win in front of our home fans and the amount of players that got an opportunity," said coach Ante Milicic.
"To win at home, but also win playing good football and to keep a clean sheet is fantastic.
"We send our supporters and our members home happy tonight."
Derbyshire had a busy night in front of the net and had missed with at least three attempts before landing two in seven minutes midway through the second half.
His third came from a simple header in the 90th minute to rack up his first hat-trick in Australia.
Seven minutes earlier there was rapturous applause from rain-soaked fans for skipper Mark Milligan when he streaked away to score the third.
Although he finished with three goals to his name, Derbyshire looked shaky early and could not land a shot from several attempts in the first half as Adelaide scrapped hard in defence.
Friday night's hat-trick brings up five goals in eight games for the former England under-21 international.
"He kept on going, he's a striker who loves scoring like they all do but the way he was in those positions to score, I think the goal in Brisbane gave him a lot of confidence," Milicic said.
The Reds have now failed to win in all four of their matches outside of South Australia this season and have conceded 12 goals in their last three away games, scoring just four.
It's a huge issue coach Carl Veart is desperate to address.
"The first goal sort of killed us but to then go on and concede another three, that's not good enough for a professional team," he said.
"We need to be a lot more resilient than we were and we were far too easy in that last 10 or 15 minutes.
"It's not good enough at the end of the season to say we played some good football at times but at other times we weren't good enough.
"We can't have that fluctuation, even in games."
Australian Associated Press
