City trailed 1-0 nearing the 80-minute mark before Barnes, who has kicked 60 goals in his last 38 National Premier League two west matches, scored a hat-trick in quick time.

Coach Danny Gnjidic said it was a difficult result to judge given the side was impressive against a quality eastern conference side for most of the match, but he said it underlined the importance of maintaining a high level across the full 90 minutes in the competition.

“Defensively they were fantastic for most of the day and they nullified Brandon Barnes for 80 minutes, but he let loose in the last 10,” Gnjidic said.

“It’s a tough one to judge. For 80-odd minutes we were pretty good, defensively we were solid...we contained them and him for a large part of the game, but it’s a good lesson for our young boys. To perform at this level it’s not about one week or two weeks, because if you do drop off you get punished.”

Once again City created opportunities, but the difference in class and finishing ability – mainly from Barnes – gave Thunder the upper hand.

“His finishes were just clinical and that was the difference, they were clinical with their finishing and the opportunities we had we lacked that instinct in front of goal to convert the opportunities we did create.”

While the scoreboard reflected a comfortable victory for Thunder, Gnjidic felt the group matched it with Dandenong for much of the match. After the match, the group delivered some honest feedback as it continues to try and press its claim to be talked about among the big clubs.

“The thing that I take out of it was that we weren’t out of our depth yesterday...internally we know what we’re expecting from our group and there was some pretty honest words spoken after the game about how cruel this game can be.”