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It is a statistic that sums up Gold Coast’s dominance over the A-League – their striker Shane Smeltz has more goals himself this season than any other club.
The competition’s newboys marched back to the A-League summit with a 2-1 win in their top of the table clash with Sydney FC at Skilled Park on Saturday.
After a brief blip last week when beaten by the Newcastle Jets, Gold Coast’s Smeltz restored order to a competition the first-year club have taken control of, netting both goals to sink their nearest rivals.
Smeltz now has eight goals in five matches this season.
That is more than Sydney FC and Brisbane Roar – the two highest-scoring outfits aside from Gold Coast – have managed team-wide so far in 2009-10.
Gold Coast coach Miron Bleiberg was impressed with his side’s performance – a vital three points achieved without marquee Socceroo Jason Culina who was on international duty.
And he pointed to New Zealander Smeltz’s contribution as pivotal in how well the side was going.
Shane was excellent again and he took his goals very well,” Bleiberg said.
“When Shane is one-on-one with the goalkeeper like he was for the second goal, you can light your cigar.
“Can you imagine how impressive it will be with Jason? That’s the beauty.”
Gold Coast now hold a two-point lead over Sydney FC, who are themselves two points clear of a log-jam of seven teams separated by just three points.
Three draws in this round’s five matches did little to sort out the mid-table, with third-placed Central Coast’s 2-1 win over Perth on Friday night the only other clear result.
North Queensland remain bottom but picked up another point with a 1-1 draw against Brisbane Roar in Townsville and Wellington were unlucky not to take all three points in a 1-1 home draw with Adelaide United.
Melbourne Victory’s difficult start to their championship defence continued with a late equaliser to Newcastle substitute Labinot Haliti sealing a 1-1 draw last Thursday.
The Victory have lost influential midfielder Billy Celeski for the rest of the season and perhaps their Asian Champions League campaign with a serious knee injury.
He is expected to have surgery this week.
And uncertainty remains over the future of Victory striker Danny Allsopp, who is believed to be a transfer target for a Middle Eastern club.
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