League leaders Brisbane Roar have grabbed yet another victory with a 2-0 result over North Queensland Fury in a very warm Townsville tonight.
A goal each side of half-time from Kosta Barbarouses did the damage for the Roar who managed to take their lead at the top of the table to 10 points and extend their unbeaten run to 17 matches.
After climbing off the bottom of the table last week, the Fury fell again and now find themselves two wins out of the top six.
A-League Week 19North Queensland Fury: 0 Brisbane Roar: 2 (Kosta Barbarouses 7'/76')
Venue: Dairy Farmers Stadium, Townsville Crowd: approx. 3,000 Referee: Peter Green Yellow cards:NQF - Brad McDonald 43' BR - nil
GOAL The league leaders continued on their merry way with an early goal through Kosta Barbarouses. The young striker received a nice pass from German midfielder Thomas Broich before sending a deft touch past Fury keeper Justin Pasfield to open the scoring.
After a slow start, the home side got into the swing of things and looked much more likely but for all their possession through midfield, could not translate it onto the scoreboard.
An early chance to both sides kicked off proceedings in the second half with Fury substitute Chris Payne heading over the crossbar before Barbarouses slid past the Fury defence but his shot was resigned to the same outcome as Payne's effort.
The depth of the Brisbane squad was shown when Ange Postecoglou made a double sub, bringing on Shane Stefanutto and Massimo Murdocca for Milan Susak and Mitch Nichols just after the hour-mark, highlighting just how good things are going at the Roar having that sort of luxury.
GOAL The Roar went two up in the 76th minute when Barbarouses grabbed his second. The Kiwi marksman helped himself to his ninth of the season when he was played in by Matt McKay after some good work from Broich, sweeping the ball past Pasfield, to give the visitors a seemingly unassailable lead.
Barbarouses almost completed his hat-trick four minutes later when he rounded Pasfield but his shot on an open goal missed the target in what was a huge let off for the Fury.
There were no more chances of any consequence as the Roar show rolls along whilst the Fury remain in the bottom three.
Starting Line-Ups
NQF Justin Pasfield (gk), Brad McDonald, Mark Hughes, Ufuk Talay, Gareth Edds, David Williams, Panny Nikas (Sseppuya 69'), Chris Grossman (Payne 46'), Simon Storey, Jason Spagnuolo (Studman 57'), Ramazan Tavsancioglu
Subs - Sebastian Usai (gk), Chris Payne (46'), Brett Studman (57'), Eugene Sseppuya (69')
BR Michael Theoklitos (gk), Matt Smith, Luke DeVere, Ivan Franjic, Erik Paartalu, Kosta Barbarouses, Jean Carlos Solorzano, Matt McKay, Mitch Nichols (Murdocca 63'), Thomas Broich (Visconte 78'), Milan Susak (Stefanutto 63')
Subs - Andrew Redmayne (gk), Shane Stefanutto (63'), Massimo Murdocca (63'), Rocky Visconte (78')
