Sunday, January 2, 2011

Melbourne Heart 2-0 North Queensland Fury: Heart win third game in a row

Melbourne Heart 2-0 North Queensland Fury

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Melbourne Heart moved into sixth place on the A-League ladder with a 2-0 win over second-last North Queensland Fury at AAMI Park this afternoon.

It was the Heart’s first home win in six outings.

The Fury were playing their 50th A-League match and their record now is 12 wins, 15 draws and 23 losses.

David Williams and Chris Payne had the only half-chances for Fury in the opening half. Williams was off target, while Payne chose to pass instead of shoot when he should really have had a go from inside the box.

The Heart’s only real chance came in stoppage time at the end of the first half when Justin Pasfield saved well from Josip Skoko.

The home side took a 58th-minute lead when Matt Thompson cut the ball back from the byline on the right and John Aloisi hit a right-foot shot inside Pasfield’s near post.

Gareth Edds headed a corner over the bar for Fury in the 68th minute, but Pasfield had to produce a fine save a minute later after Adrian Zahra’s left-wing cross.

It was 2-0 with 7 minutes remaining when substitute Gerald Sibon rose above the defence and nodded home Marrone’s left-wing cross.

It was Sibon’s 6th goal of the season. He went close on two other occasions with free-kicks.

The victory, Heart’s third on the trot, was their first win at home since October.

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Melbourne Heart: Bolton - Marrone, Colosimo, Thompson, Behich - Kalmar (Sibon 58), Srhoj, Skoko - Zahra, Aloisi (Beauchamp 76), Worm (Terra 52) (Sub not used: Zois)

Goals: Aloisi 58, Sibon 83

North Queensland Fury: Pasfield - Grossman, Hughes, Tavsancioglu, Kilian (Hingert 75) - Nikas (Spagnuolo 71), Talay (Casey 57), Edds - Williams, Payne, McDonald (Sub not used: Usai)

Booked: Hughes

Att: 6,482

Ref: P Green

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Top quality passing game by Heart! Good win!

However I feel for Fury. They lack 2-3 good players to really win matches. They play some good stuff at times and deserve a pat on the back. Off field problems and lack of finance is destroying them on field.

I have doubts they will be in the competition next season. They simply dont have the support.

Fred
Brisbane

Anonymous said...

BILL wrote...

Great atmosphere at the game. AAMI is awesome for watching football. Yarraside end was 90% full, and north end about 30% full and Cat A had some pretty good crowd numbers. Thought it was similar to the crowd from the 1st game of the season against the Mariners which was 11k.

I love the pettyness of people refusing to purchase a ticket to watch Victory play Heart at AAMI. Would the A-League be a better competition with 6 teams??

We need to support our competition, not hope that clubs die so that your own will be stronger. I'd be more than happy to see every team have increased attendance and supporter base, including Victory. Lower crowds are not going to help negotiate a better TV deal.