Melbourne Victory took the honours 8-7 on penalties ending Phoenix's hopes of becoming the first New Zealand-based club in the Hyundai A-League to win a title.

Coach Ricki Herbert still managed to take positives from the performance.

"I thought we were good tonight and we certainly did enough to win it," Herbert said. "I don't think it should have gone to penalties, to be fair. But as we stand now we've gone through the pre-season unbeaten, outside the penalty shootout, and we didn't concede during the 90 minutes tonight. So, overall, it was very good."

"I'm really proud that the team has been able to make the final," Herbert added. "But we've never lost sight of our main focus and everything we have achieved during the pre-season has been geared toward August 17. Everyone can take a bit of a deep breath now; we're 10 days away from the main competition starting."