How Australian media reacted to Wrexham's win at Melbourne Victory, one player stood out as Dragons 'dominate'

Wrexham are down under, touring Australia and New Zealand as part of their pre-season preparations ahead of the 2025/26 Championship season.

Phil Parkinson’s side kicked off their summer in Melbourne on Friday. Wrexham beat Melbourne Victory 3-0 in what was a routine opener, with goals from Thomas O’Connor, Ryan Hardie and George Evans on the day.

Following the success of Welcome to Wrexham in America, and the success that the club enjoyed on their Wrex Coast Tour last summer, Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac thought it’d be a good idea to head out to Australia.

Wrexham are trying to build a fanbase in Australia but ticket sales for the Wrexham Down Under tour have been slow so far.

Nonetheless, Wrexham’s win over Melbourne Victory has been received well by press down under, with plenty of praise for a Dragons side who looked rampant upon their return to action.

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Australian media react to Wrexham’s win over Melbourne Victory

Football is still a growing sport in Australia. But Wrexham have certainly caught some attention whilst they’ve been there, and the media have also paid attention to what is, in essence, a relatively unimportant game, and many outlets have reported on the sheer dominance of Wrexham over Melbourne Victory.

It’s understood that Melbourne fielded a very young and makeshift side. Wrexham meanwhile played two different XIs: one in either half. Australian outlet 6News went with the headline ‘Wrexham dominate Victory to start Down Under tour’, and a brilliant piece from The Age went with ‘Wrexham dominate Melbourne Victory, but the full story is beyond the Marvel Stadium pitch’, which looks into the reason why Wrexham are in Australia right now.

Another major Australian outlet called The Roar titled their piece on the game ‘Wrexham in effect: Victory vanquished as key signing makes Hollywood entrance’.

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Hardie’s name in particular was mentioned a lot by the press. The Age wrote: “The difference between the teams from then on was particularly stark. Hardie’s darting front-post run brought his first goal for Wrexham, getting onto the end of a Ryan Barnett cross

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What Phil Parkinson said about Wrexham’s win over Melbourne Victory

What the Australian media makes of Wrexham, whilst interesting, matters little. But what Parkinson made of it all is much more important.

Speaking after the game, Parkinson rued the lack of quality from Wrexham in the game. He explained: “We got a foothold of the game and you felt a goal was coming for us, and we locked attacks in and we had some good sustained periods of pressure. Then we put them under a bit of pressure with some good quality, but probably not enough.”

To say that after a convincing win, albeit against a weak side, shows the levels of quality that Parkinson is demanding this summer. And rightly so as Wrexham are joining a Championship with huge amounts of talent.

Wrexham play Southampton on the opening day and that might prove to be their toughest assignment of the season: perform well in that one and it could set a positive tone for the season, but perform poorly and it could have many starting to worry.

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