Written by Roy Hay.
Round 24 Southern Division Tuesday 24 March 1998 Bulleen Inter Kings 3 Melbourne Knights 5 (Matthew Collina 3) (John Kalabric, Festim Zekiri, Mijo Trupkovic, Ivan Razov, own goal) (Match brought forward from Round 26) Northern Division Friday 27 March 1998 Bulleen Inter Kings 3 South Melbourne Rockets 0 (Zoran Kostadinovski 2, Michael Gullino) Sunday 29 March 1998 South Melbourne 4 Altona Magic 2 () () Bentleigh Greens 2 VIS 1 (Steve Gogos, John Natsioulas) (Billy Petrovski) Heidelberg United v Carlton (already played) Gippsland Falcons v Bye Bye v Melbourne Knights Albury-Wodonga v Bye Northern Division Friday 27 March 1998 Newcastle Breakers 4 Sydney United Colts 0 (John Gibson, Greg Owens, Peter Juchniewicz, Chad Mansley) Saturday 28 March 1998 Marconi Fairfield 2 AIS 3 (Joe Bruni, Victor Tomasevich) (Michael Lerpance 2, David Onoforo) Sunday 29 March 1998 UTS Olympic 6 QAS 2 (Paul Kohler, Peter Zorbas, (Shane Smeltz, Daniel Invincible) Sam Larocca, Steve Karavatakis, Jim Bakis, Leo Alexiou) Monday 30 March 1998 ACTAS v Wollongong City () () Wednesday 1 April 1998 NSWIS v Sydney United () () League ladders Southern Divsion Team P W D L F A Pts Melbourne Knights 19 17 0 2 82 23 51 Carlton 18 16 0 2 47 10 48 Gippsland Falcons 18 13 2 3 44 18 41 Bulleen Inter 19 10 2 7 33 26 32 V I S 18 9 3 6 42 21 30 Bentleigh Greens 19 8 2 9 28 34 26 Heidelberg United 18 6 2 10 25 50 20 South Melbourne 19 5 3 11 37 34 18 Albury Wodonga 19 5 1 13 26 36 16 Altona Magic 19 3 2 14 21 71 11 South Melbourne Rockets 18 1 1 16 13 75 4 Northern Divsion A I S 21 15 2 4 74 21 47 UTS Olympic 20 12 4 4 63 30 40 Wollongong City 20 11 4 5 43 36 37 Q A S 21 10 4 7 44 30 34 Sydney United 19 8 6 5 51 35 30 Newcastle Breakers 20 8 6 6 45 36 30 Marconi Fairfield 20 9 2 9 40 39 29 Marconi Fairfield Colts 20 7 4 9 32 45 25 A C T A S 20 5 6 9 23 51 21 Sydney United Colts 20 4 3 13 23 58 15 N S W I S 19 3 5 11 24 45 14 UTS Olympic Colts 20 3 4 13 29 65 13 Leading goalscorers Southern Division Name Team Goals Adis Kablar Melbourne Knights 14 John Kalabric Melbourne Knights 14 Zoran Petrevski VIS 12 Jovanco Novacevski Carlton 10 Luke Cheney Gippsland Falcons 10 Northern Division Name Team Goals Mile Sterjovski AIS/Sydney United 25 Mark Hagger Marconi Fairfield Colts 20 Joe Bruni Marconi Fairfield 14 Chris Tanchevski Newcastle Breakers/AIS 11 Azur Mujanovic Sydney United 11 Jim Bakis UTS Olympic 11 Nick Carle UTS Olympic 10 National Youth League (Southern Division), 24-30 March 1998 by Roy Hay Melbourne Knights beat Bulleen Inter Kings by five goals to three at the Veneto Club in a match brought forward from Round 26. Mijo Trupkovic scored in the opening minute for the Knights and Festim Zekiri followed up in 27. Ivan Razov also scored before the break while Matthew Collina got the first of his hat-trick for Bulleen. In the second half he want on to score the other two while John Kalabric and an own goal completed the Knights tally. Bulleen bounced back on Friday night with a three-nil win over the South Melbourne Rockets. Zoran Kostadinovski scored the first goal for Bulleen after 10 minutes, but thereafter the match was very even until the last dozen minutes when Kostadinovski scored again. Michael Gullino scored a third with only a couple of minutes left. Bulleen deserved the win which lifted it into fourth place on the ladder and it stayed there when the VIS went down on Sunday. South Melbourne beat Altona Magic by four goals to two, but at time of writing no goalscorers had been supplied. Bentleigh Greens came back from a goal down to beat the Victorian Institute of Sport by two goals to one at Kingston Heath. Billy Petrovski scored his fifth goal of the season to put the VIS in front, but Steve Gogos and John Natsioulas replied for the Greens to give the team its deserved victory. National Youth League (Northern Division), 27-30 March 1998 Newcastle Breakers had a comfortable four-nil win over Sydney United Colts at Topper Stadium on Friday. The damage was done in the first half when Breakers scored three times, through John Gibson, Greg Owens and Peter Juchniewicz. In the second half the Colts tried to fight back, but Chad Mansley's goal settled matters. The AIS just managed to come out on top over Marconi Fairfield by the odd goal in five. The first half hour was neck and neck before Joe Bruni broke through in 30 minutes and when Victor Tomasevich added a second for Marconi in 39 minutes an upset looked very possible. David Onoforo pulled a goal back for the Institute just before the break, and Michael Lerpance scored twice in two minutes after 48 and 50 to give the AIS what turned out to be the winning break. UTS Olympic beat the Queensland Academy of Sport by six goals to two, with all eight goals scored in singles. For UTS it was Paul Kohler, Sam Larocca, Steve Karavatakis, Peter Zorbas, Jim Bakis and Leo Alexiou who got the goals, while Shane Smeltz and Daniel Invincible were on target for QAS. ACTAS played Wollongong City on Monday night and the NSWIS v Sydney United match will be played on Wednesday at Valentine Park at 7 pm.