Old-hand McBreen finds his golden moment on the biggest stage of all Victory salute: Mariners coach Graham Arnold celebrates after his team's grand final triumph on Sunday. Veteran striker Daniel McBreen scored the penalty which sealed the grand final for the Mariners and won the Marston Medal as man-of-the-match to cap an extraordinary season for a player whose earlier career epitomises that of the journeyman footballer. Never in his wildest dreams would the son of former professional Jimmy McBreen, who turns 36 on Tuesday, have imagined when he was lugging his gangly frame around the lower reaches of the Scottish and English leagues that he might enjoy his finest hour in the twilight of his career in front of such a huge crowd, and on such a splendid stage. The same can be said of his goal-scoring colleague Patrick Zwaanswijk, who at 38 is even older. His opening goal, when it came in the shadow of half-time, was richly deserved. Few in the sell-out crowd would argue that on the day the game delivered the right result, as Mariners skipper John Hutchinson, who has tasted the bitter disappointment of grand final defeat on more than one occasion, testified afterwards. We worked our socks off today. Western Sydney is a great team and [they] had a great season but we were better today. It's amazing, as I said to the fans a long time ago, its not for us its for them. There are some good characters here, some fantastic players and good youngsters and before the game I just told them it could be the last time we could be playing together as a team," he said as he told how he inspired his teammates to lift for one more game in a long and arduous season which has seen the club from Gosford contest not just the A-League but the Asian Champions League. His teammate, goalkeeper Mat Ryan, may well have played his last game for the club as he is expected to move overseas in the off season. If he has, he could not have found a better way to exit. There's no better feeling in world football than this. We always knew it was going to be a bit of a war coming out here, our past three encounters [against the Wanderers] have been the same way. But to the credit of the boys they were just unbelievable, as they have been all year. If it was to be my last game, I am going out in the best possible way with a victory in the grand final. For Wanderers skipper Michael Beauchamp, an ex-Mariner who played in yellow and navy in that first Central Coast grand final loss in 2006, defeat was a bitter pill to swallow after such an extraordinary debut season. Its fantastic the amount of support we have had. It's got bigger and better throughout the year but it doesn't take away from the pain of the moment. We pushed right to the last minute," he said.