Fury denied as Jelic fires Glory to victory
North Queensland Fury picked up its first point of the season after a thrilling 3-3 draw with Adelaide United at Hindmarsh Stadium, while Perth Glory continued its dominance of Melbourne Victory in Perth, winning 2-1.
The Fury were within a minute of a deserved victory, but Dutch striker Dyron Daal went from hero to villain after conceding a penalty in the dying minutes, which was converted by stand-in Reds captain Lucas Pantelis and leaving the scores tied.
At ME Bank Stadium in Perth, a Branko Jelic brace saw Perth get the points against Melbourne and jump up to third place on the table.
There was high excitement at Hindmarsh Stadium, but not amongst the majority of the 10,773 crowd that braved the wet weather. Adelaide was in the box seat to collect the three points when it led 2-1 coming into the final 10 minutes of the match.
But two goals from Daal and Daniel McBreen of four minutes saw the Fury take an unlikely, but deserved lead.
With the clock ticking down a Fury victory looked on the cards, but deep into injury time Daal inexplicable raised his arms contesting a long throw-in and referee Peter Green had no option but to point to the spot. Pantelis took the penalty kick and coolly delivered the ball into the right hand corner of the net.
After the Reds generated a couple of early chances it was Robbie Fowler who scored the first goal five minutes into the contest.
The Fury captain charged into the box, swooped on a beautiful James Robinson cross and kept the ball low to beat Eugene Galekovic through the pace of his strike rather than its direction.
It took Adelaide some time to regroup but when it did it bounced back in impressive fashion.
In the 23rd minute Pantelis controlled a cross from Michael Marrone with his left foot and then kicked with his right to stroke his shot past goalkeeper Paul Henderson.
10 minutes later it was 2-1 to the home side when Pantelis set up Lloyd Owusu for his first goal for the Reds. The big striker headed a Pantelis cross and watched as the ball slowly looped clear of Henderson inside the far post.
North Queensland trailed at the break but had every reason to enter the second half with optimism given its own positive play and scoring opportunities.
The Fury were centimetres away from finding the equaliser four minutes into the send half. Fowler found Rostyn Griffiths whose shot cleared Galekovic but cannoned off the crossbar.
At the 70th minute a pre-meditated one-two play from a corner freed up Ufuk Talay who hammered a ball through the Reds' defence but into the woodwork after what looked like a slight deflection off Galekovic-s finger tips.
Fury-s dominance was rewarded in the 83rd minute, with former Adelaide player Fred Agius providing the impetus off the bench. Agius first goal assist saw him release Daal with a neat ball over the top and the lanky striker poked his shot past the advancing Galekovic.
Four minutes later Agius supplied a magnificent cross for McBreen to power his head home.
After Pantelis had leveled it up, Cristiano should have added further heartache to Fury, but somehow put an open header wide of the post from right in front of the goal.
Crowd: 10,773 at Hindmarsh Stadium
In wet Perth, Glory has won its second straight match and its 5th win from 7 games at home against Victory.
Jelic opened the scoring after just five minutes, but then the Victory controlled the rest of the first half equalizing in the 9th minute through Archie Thompson.
It was Jelic again who broke the deadlock in the 54th minute with his second tap in and it was a memorable night for the 32-year-old with his first two goals for Perth.
The Glory move into the top four with two straight wins at home after two losses away to start the season, while the Victory have a win, a draw and two losses from the four games.
The Glory got off to the ideal start when Jelic ended up putting the ball over the goal line after a free kick saw a mad scramble in the box after Mile Sterjovski-s initial shot was saved by Glen Moss. The rebounded off a Victory defender and Jelic was on the spot to ensure it went over the line.
It only served to kick the Victory into gear though. Immediately afterwards, the visitors got forward to create three chances by getting in behind the Glory defence and Danny Allsopp found some space down the left side and crossed to Thompson, who scored at the second attempt after Naum Sekulovski had blocked his initial shot.
Hernandez blew a shot wide, Thompson had one that went high, Hernandez created another good opportunity that was saved by Tando Velaphi and then Fabiano had the best of all just before half-time, but was denied by the impressive Velaphi.
Somewhat surprisingly it was the Glory that broke the deadlock in the 54th minute when Jelic scored his second. Sterjovski powered a header at goal, which Moss could only parry and Jelic was able to pick up the scraps and put away his second goal.
The Glory were enjoying a good run of play and had a golden chance for a third goal when Wayne Srhoj made beautiful connection on a strike, but it sailed agonisingly wide.
Perth fans enjoyed the sight of Brazilian midfielder Amaral in his first game of the season when he came on in the 79th minute.
Crowd: 8,057 at ME Bank Stadium.