Teenager gives Roar win in A-League football
Teenage forward Tommy Oar moved Queensland into second place in Australia’s A-League with a freekick in added time to give the Roar a 3-2 win over the Wellington Phoenix on Sunday.
The 17-year-old’s left-foot shot took a slight deflection past Phoenix goalkeeper Glen Moss. Oar drilled the shot from just outside the penalty area after Wellington skipper Andrew Durante was red-carded for bringing down Roar winger Michael Zullo.
Queensland was level with Melbourne on 26 points in the standings, just a point behind Adelaide United, which has a game in hand over both teams.
Winless at home in their first five matches this season, Queensland has now won three in a row in Brisbane.
On Saturday, substitutes Nick Ward and Ney Fabiano scored late goals as the Melbourne Victory beat Sydney 3-2, inflicting Sydney’s third straight loss and Melbourne’s first win after three defeats in a row. Sydney, expected to be among the league leaders, has won only once in its past eight matches and is in sixth place.
Sydney’s Shannon Cole opened the scoring just 30 seconds into the match with a curling left-footer which Melbourne goalkeeper Michael Theoklitos had no chance to stop. Three minutes later, Brendan Gan put Sydney up 2-0 with a 25-meter right-footer just inside the left post.
Melbourne’s star striker Archie Thompson opened his side’s scoring in the 14th minute, after being found clear in the box following a quickly taken Carlos Hernandez freekick.
Victory captain Kevin Muscat said he sensed Melbourne would overcome its poor start to the match.
“You get those games sometimes where I could just tell we were going to get back into the game,” Muscat said. “The noise that I could hear, the belief that was going around the place, in fact we were disappointed not to come in at halftime even. But as soon as we got that second goal there was only one winner.”
Adelaide, returning from its fifth-place finish at the Club World Cup in Japan, consolidated its position in the top three when Kristian Sarkies’ 40th-minute strike gave it a 1-0 win over the Perth Glory.
Adelaide finishes its schedule with four matches in 14 days against Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Queensland.
“We’ve got a couple of games in hand but that doesn’t mean anything unless you win them,” Adelaide coach Aurelio Vidmar said. “It’s never easy coming here (to Perth) so to get the three points really showed we are serious about where we want to go as a football club.”
Sasho Petrovski scored in the 67th minute and substitute Matt Simon added the winner in the 80th as the Central Coast Mariners overcame an early penalty by Joel Griffiths to beat the Newcastle Jets 2-1.
