By AAP
November 29th 2009 @ 1:21am
Related coverage
Fury move off the bottom of the table
North Queensland Fury bounced back from last week’s drubbing from the Central Coast Mariners to defeat Adelaide United 2-1 at Dairy Farmers Stadium on Saturday night.
A crowd of 5,356 witnessed some Robbie Fowler magic, persistence paying off from Daniel McBreen and a late nail-biter from Adelaide’s Cristiano as the Fury secured just their second home win.
North Queensland now get a much needed confidence boost, moving off the bottom of the table while Adelaide remain on a downward spiral.
Adelaide United put pressure on the Fury’s newly promoted goalkeeper Justin Pasfield in the opening minutes of the game with two attempts on goal that led him to make desperate saves.
The Fury hit back in the 12th minute with a break being made by David Williams who got a cross to Daniel McBreen, whose shot drifted wide of the right post.
McBreen continued to dominate attack, receiving a ball from Robbie Fowler and getting a low shot away that was saved by Adelaide `keeper Eugene Galekovic in the 25th minute.
McBreen finally converted opportunities into a goal in the 38th minute with Fowler crossing it in to the big striker whose half volley on the turn flew past a diving Galekovic.
On his debut for North Queensland, English import Terry Cooke claimed the first opportunity of the second half receiving a ball from Williams in the box but steered his right foot shot wide of the post.
The Fury struck again in the 67th minute when Paul Kohler’s short pass found Fowler, the Liverpool great’s strike from outside the box taking a wicked deflection to give Galekovic no chance in the Adelaide goal.
The Reds scored a rare goal through substitute Cristiano in the first minute of injury time but it was the a case of too little, too late for the visitors.
Pasfield was delighted with the win, and especially in gaining the three points.
“Just the effort from the boys was fantastic and just to get the three points is what we wanted,” he said.
Adelaide coach Phil Stubbins conceded that it had been a case of too little too late for his team.
“At the end of the day it’s a bad result for the club,” he said.
“We just fell short again. I think the first half was not as good a performance as we had hoped for.
“(At) halftime I think we changed things around for the positive for our boys.
“We got ourselves back into the game way too late and left it with not much opportunity to get a draw.”
Despite the disappointment, Stubbins remains optimistic.
“I think we can probably take the positives from the second half performance,” he said.
Like this content? Buzz it up!
Free Email updates:
Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...
