Winner: Western Sydney Wanderers
Last season's wooden spooners are almost already one-fifth of the way to matching their paltry total of just 27 goals scored in 26 games last season after putting five past the defending premiers at the weekend.
It's a thoroughly refreshing change for a side that had scored just six goals by Christmas in their previous campaign, and perhaps most excitingly for Ufuk Talay and the RBB, only one of the five goals came from a regular face from that season.
Captain Brandon Borrello overcame injury troubles to level things up 1-1 shortly before new and returning names took over.
Kiwi Liam Gillion scored against his old club, Nicolas Milanovic and Miguel Di Pizio both enjoyed successful homecomings to their beloved Wanderers, and 19-year-old Atiya Waraga was another green shoot with his first goal in his fifth senior A-League appearance.
The most pleasing aspect for Talay was that his players were a lot braver this week than in the limp Sydney Derby of the first round, putting it down to reduced "external noise" in a non-marquee matchup.
Loser: Both Melbourne clubs still without a win
Three of the last four Melbourne derbies have now attracted crowds of under 20,000 after each of the eight prior cleared that mark, a worrying indicator of the overall health of the competition in Victoria.
This match was expected to get a bit of additional momentum from South Melbourne's phenomenal Australia Cup final win in front of nearly 30,000 at AAMI Park, but a day of heavy rain in Melbourne probably denied the match a couple of thousand walk-up ticket sales at a venue that lacks shelter for many spectators.
It was an entertaining affair - much more so than last week's season-opener in Sydney - but both teams spurned opportunities to grab all three points.
Winner: Wellington's back four
The only team of 12 to keep a clean sheet this weekend thoroughly deserve their place at the top of the standings with only one goal conceded after two rounds.
They've had a similar early season to transformation to the Wanderers, but instead of going from the league's worst scorers to the most prolific, they've completely flipped their defence.
Wellington were by far the worst defence of last season, going for 48 goals in 26 games, but Bill Tuiloma and Lukas Kelly-Heald have had an off-season together to form a more solid centre back pairing, whilst the recruitment of left-back James McGarry has added a bit of extra impetus to their attack after he made ten accurate progressive passes at the weekend as well as two accurate crosses.
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Loser: Andriano Lebib
The Perth Glory left back was our worst rated player of the weekend, having committed a terrible error leading directly to Justin Vidic's 28th minute match opener.
On top of that, Lebib missed the target with a majority of his passes and recorded no blocks or interceptions.
It was such a poor performance that he was dragged by Adam Griffiths at half-time for Jaiden Kucharski.
Winner: Xavier Bertoncello's wondergoal
Xavier Bertoncello's seventh A-League goal went viral within minutes of bursting into the corner of the net, with a shot that produced just 0.07 expected goals - meaning only about 7% of comparable shots from such an angle and distance score.
But it was perhaps his dribbling, control and composure to get into a spot to even take a shot that was the most impressive aspect of the play.
Aaron Murphy has been with Flashscore since 2018 and, as the founding editor of the Australian newsdesk, has reported on-site at several major events in Melbourne including the Australian Open, State of Origin, A-League, NBL and international cricket. You can read his pieces here and contact him on X or LinkedIn.
