The hosts were put to the sword by Moreland after centre back Ryan Giles was sent off after receiving two yellow cards in the space of three minutes.

Murray had trouble setting up the wall from the free kick that followed Giles’ dismissal, which ultimately deflected in to put Moreland City in front after 27 minutes.

It went from bad to worse from there for Murray with Apai Ukuno doubling the advantage five minutes later, before adding his second in the 39^th minute to give his side a commanding 3-0 lead at the break.

Murray settled in the second half, but the number advantage for Moreland gave them complete control as they added another three goals in the second half through Corey Thomas, Andrew Viola and Ukuno, who finished with a hat-trick.

Coach Elliot Jones knew it was going to be tough for Murray without Giles for the majority of the game.

“It’s certainly a long day when your lose your centre back early on to a second yellow (card) and they score off the resulting free kick,” Jones said.

“It’s about as bad as it gets in terms of that.

“I thought we kind of lost our way for the next 20 or 30 minutes and that’s probably what cost us.

“The damage was done, we’re 3-0 at half-time against a side with their tail up.

“Every side in the NPL is strong and you can’t give them a sniff like that.

“I thought we worked hard in the second half, but unfortunately when there’s that much time out there on the park with a man down, they were able to pick their passes and their runs and opened us up.”

Jones was pleased with the effort up until the point of the sending off, but it clearly had severe consequences.

“We then had to change our structure and guys got shifted around it just took us too long to get our heads back on after the sending off,” he said.

“We spoke at half-time about playing for pride and running the game out because it’s very hard to get back into a game at 3-0 with a man down.

“The only thing you can do when you have a loss like that is stick together and get on with it.

“We’ve had a really good pre-season and one result won’t make or break us.”

Giles receives an automatic one-game suspension for his red card, while the side’s other starting centre back Halil Gur is expected to miss another week after getting married.

“It makes it tough for us next week, but we’ve got some guys in the 20s that are really looking for an opportunity,” Jones said.

“Sometimes that’s the way you’ve got to look at it.

“As much as our backs will be to the wall next week, it’s a massive opportunity for other guys and we have a lot of faith in our 20s.

“We also have guys like Josh Mulcahy who will probably get a start next week.”