Written by Roy Hay.
Round 26 Southern Division Saturday 11 April 1998 Heidelberg United 0 VIS 1 (Steve Laurie) Sunday 12 April 1998 Gippsland Falcons 10 South Melbourne Rockets 1 (Luke Cheney 3, Paul Byrne 2, (Phillip Klathas) John McEvoy 2, Andrew Halikias 2, Anthony Pardo) South Melbourne v Carlton (Match postponed) Altona Magic v Albury Wodonga (Already played) Bulleen Inter v Melbourne Knights (Already played) Bentleigh Greens v Bye Northern Division Saturday 11 April 1998 NSWIS v AIS (Match postponed?) UTS Olympic Colts v Marconi Fairfield Colts (Match postponed) Sunday 12 April 1998 UTS Olympic 3 Newcastle Breakers 2 (Ali Jomaa 2, Tayfun Devrimol) (Peter Juchniewicz, Tony Bauer) Marconi Fairfield v Sydney United Colts (Match postponed) Wollongong City 2 Sydney United 3 (Paul Reid, Ray Younis) (Paul Mirosevic, Joe Barilla, Robert Angievski) Bye v QAS ACTAS v Bye League ladders Southern Divsion Team P W D L F A Pts Melbourne Knights 20 18 0 2 85 24 54 Carlton 19 17 0 2 55 11 51 Gippsland Falcons 20 14 2 4 55 27 44 V I S 20 10 4 6 45 23 34 Bulleen Inter 20 10 3 7 35 28 33 Bentleigh Greens 20 8 2 10 29 37 26 Heidelberg United 20 7 2 10 29 53 23 South Melbourne 19 5 3 11 37 34 18 Albury Wodonga 20 5 1 14 28 46 16 Altona Magic 20 4 2 14 31 73 14 South Melbourne Rockets 20 1 1 18 16 89 4 Northern Division Team P W D L F A Pts A I S 21 15 2 4 74 21 47 UTS Olympic 22 14 4 4 71 33 46 Sydney United 22 11 6 5 60 40 39 Wollongong City 22 11 5 6 47 41 38 Q A S 22 11 4 7 51 30 37 Newcastle Breakers 22 9 6 7 50 39 33 Marconi Fairfield 21 9 2 10 40 46 29 Marconi Fairfield Colts 21 7 4 10 35 50 25 A C T A S 22 5 7 10 25 56 22 N S W I S 21 4 5 12 31 51 17 Sydney United Colts 21 4 3 14 24 63 15 UTS Olympic Colts 21 3 4 14 30 68 13 Leading goalscorers Southern Division Name Team Goals Adis Kablar Melbourne Knights 16 John Kalabric Melbourne Knights 15 Jovanco Novacevski Carlton 14 Luke Cheney Gippsland Falcons 13 Zoran Petrevski VIS 12 Northern Division Name Team Goals Mile Sterjovski AIS/Sydney United 25 Mark Hagger Marconi Fairfield Colts 22 Joe Bruni Marconi Fairfield 14 Azur Mujanovic Sydney United 11 Michael Ferrante AIS 10 Chris Tanchevski Newcastle Breakers/AIS 10 Jim Bakis UTS Olympic 9 Nick Carle UTS Olympic 9 Please note goalscorers as given in revised tables this week are as supplied by Soccer Australia from official referees' team sheets, not as given to me directly by club liaison officers. National Youth League (Southern Division), 11-12 April 1998 by Roy Hay Heavy rain in Melbourne forced the postponement of the Round 26 match between South Melbourne and Carlton at Bob Jane Stadium to save the pitch for the senior game in the Ericsson Cup. This leaves the Qualifying final unchanged since Melbourne Knights was drawn to play Carlton no matter what the outcome of the Blues final game. Nevertheless the Round 26 match will probably be played on Wednesday. The Victorian Institute of Sport gained the last play-off berth in the Southern Division with a single goal victory over Heidelberg United at Olympic Village on Saturday. Steve Laurie got the only goal with a fierce volley, the strike coming with only eight minutes left to play. The VIS will meet Gippsland Falcons in the Elimination Final. Falcons ran up ten goals to one against South Melbourne Rockets in the Latrobe Valley on Sunday night. Rockets had only nine players and it was one-way traffic with three goals by Luke Cheney, and doubles by Paul Byrne, John McEvoy and Andrew Halikias and a single by Anthony Pardo for the Falcons. Phillip Klathas got the consolation goal for the Rockets. National Youth League (Northern Division), 11-12 April 1998 The weather played havoc with the final round of home and away matches in Sydney with the UTS Olympic Colts v Marconi Fairfield Colts match scheduled for Saturday being postponed. The same was true of the Marconi Fairfield v Sydney United Colts match. The match between NSWIS and the AIS probably also succumbed. Outstanding games are likely to be rescheduled for Wednesday. In a thriller, Sydney United just grabbed the last play-off spot with a three-two win over Wollongong Wolves. It was one-all at the interval and looked like going all the way to the wire. Paul Reid opened up for Wollongong in 25 minutes, but within a couple of minutes Joe Barilla equalised for United. Seven minutes into the second half, Paul Mirosevic put Sydney United in front and then Robert Angievski made it three and seemed to have the game sewn up for United in 64 minutes. But the Wolves would not give up and when Ray Younis scored after 80 minutes the last ten were not for the faint-hearted as Wollongong threw everything at United, which somehow held out. Now the two teams have to do it all again next week in the Elimination Final and it would be very hard to pick a winner at this stage. It was equally close at Belmore as UTS Olympic squeaked home by three goals to two against Newcastle Breakers. Peter Juchniewicz scored first for the Breakers in 13 minutes and Ali Jomaa got Olympic on terms after four more minutes. Then Tayfun Devrimol gave Olympic the lead on 25 and there was no further scoring till the 70th minute, when Jomaa grabbed his second. Tony Bauer pulled a goal back for the Breakers in 87 to set up a furious last minute onslaught which Olympic managed to weather. Commiserations to Gary Phillips and the lads from the Queensland Academy who just missed out by a point from qualifying for the play-offs in the Northern Division.