Striker Chris Wood has become the All Whitess leading international goalscorer, as New Zealand overwhelmed Fiji 4-0 in an World Cup qualifying match at Doha.
The result - their second pool win of the Oceania tournament - puts the Kiwis atop their group and effectively into the semi-finals, with only the winners progressing to the next stage - a showdown with the fourth-ranked CONCACAF (North & Central America, Caribbean) team.
New Zealand next face winless New Caledonia on Friday morning (NZ time).
For much of the first half, the All Whites struggled to overcome the spirited Fijians, who beat New Caledonia in their tournament opener, but finally grabbed the lead, when Wood rose high at the far post to nod home a long free-kick from Clayton Lewis and equal Vaughan Convey's record of 29 goals.
Amber Hearn holds the Football Ferns scoring record with 54 goals over her 14-year, 125-match career for the NZ women.
"They were quite tight on us, quite aggressively man for man" reflects NZ midfielder Marco Stamenic. "But I thought, as we kept playing, be patient, we opened them up slowly and it was all good from there."
The Kiwis enjoyed a wealth of possession and fired 16 attempts at goal, seven of them on target, again cracking the Fijian resistance, when Lewis' corner created a goalmouth scramble that ended with replacement Elijah Just turning to slot a second goal high into the net.
Seconds later, Wood had his second and outright ownership of the record, when he ran onto a perfectly weighted through-ball from Just and guided a left-footer past the Fijian keeper.
Lewis provided the icing on the cake, when he slotted a penalty moments before fulltime.
"Four-nil was great, but most importantly, the three points [for the win] was amazing," says Stamenic.
"Every game is important, not just for today or tomorrow or a week's time. Every game is important for our development as a team to get to our end result, which is the World Cup at the end of the year."
New Zealand 4 (Wood 2, Just, Lewis) Fiji 0
