Saints crash Lightning

St George Saints continued the misery of Central Coast Lightning following a 3-1 win at St George Stadium on Saturday night. The Saints were simply too snazzy for the Lightning, and victory lifted the “red and whites” to within sight of playoff territory. Central Coast are in the middle of a slump which has seen them win just one of their last eight matches.

A first goal of the year to Neil Woodcock gave a well-organised Central Coast the lead on 17-minutes, and they looked like holding their advantage into halftime before a last-minute strike by Yavuz Ekinci restored parity for St George at the break. Goalscoring maestro Juan Carlos Chavez converted a 55^th minute spot kick to make it a Saints lead and Simon Verrender made sure of the result with a third goal on 65-minutes.

St George coach Nikola Orlic said it was good to get a result. “We worked out a few things at halftime that we needed to change and it worked out well for us,” he said. “It’s the old cliché at the moment of taking it one game at a time. The good thing about it is it’s [making the top-five] in our court. If we’re good enough, we’ll get there. But it’s a different competition at this end of the season and results are going every way.”

St George Saints 3 (Yavuz Ekinci 44m Juan Carlos Chavez 55m penalty Simon Verrender 65m) Central Coast Lightning 1 (Neil Woodcock 17m)