Skippers strike earns Glory the points

Perth Glory recorded its first away win of the season with a 1-0 victory over the New Zealand Knights in their Hyundai A-League clash at North Harbour Stadium in Auckland tonight.

It was Glory skipper Jamie Harnwell who was the hero for the Glory, his 67th minute strike proving to be the difference. The Glory were unchanged from last weeks 1-2 home loss against Adelaide United, but the Knights made Six changes from last weeks side that were thumped 4-0 at Newcastle.

The Glory being slowly and were lucky not to trail at half-time after the Knights adapted to the wet conditions the better and peppered the goal with shots, but the Glory rode their luck and in a game when you don't take your chances it could come back to haunt you, which the Knights found out later. The Knights went close midway through the half with at least three shots on goal in as many minutes.

Glory goalkeeper Jason Petrovic saved the first and only the crossbar prevented a Knights follow-up attempt from going in, Striker Sean Devine missed two more opportunities soon after as the Glory had to defend in numbers. The best chance of the first half for the Glory fell to midfielder Naum Sekulovski who was played in by a superb Bobby Despotovski through ball, but he couldn't get past goalkeeper Glen Moss in a one-on-one encounter.

An improved second-half in slippery conditions at North Harbour Stadium saw the Glory dominate and create more opportunities in attack to give the luckless Knights a second loss at home by converting one of them. Steve McMahon dragged Brain Deane who had another quite game and brought on new signing Damian Mori, and Mori was involved in the winning goal.

It came in the 68th minute after a succession of corners, a quick thinking Despotovski played a short corner to Jamie Coyne, he crossed into the goalmouth and Damian Mori headed down, and in the scramble defender Harnwell drilled the ball home over the goalkeeper's head.

"To get a goal at that stage of the game was pretty important. It just happened to fall to me," Harnwell said after the game.

Glory coach Steve McMahon said his team had been fortunate to come away with a win in Auckland.

"It was a hard-fought one-nil and you'll take that any day of the week away from home. Things weren't going (the Knights') way and you have to capitalise on that which I think we did very, very well."

Knights coach John Adshead said it had been a frustrating week for the team with three key players out of the side and a disappointing result, "We probably dominated for 70 minutes out of 90 tonight, the team's performance was a vast improvement from their 4-0 loss to Newcastle in the last round."

"These lads have done terrifically well tonight."

The victory has moved the Glory up into third place on the table and sets up a blockbuster next weekend when Sydney FC venture to the west.

Team Line-Ups

New Zealand:
1 Glen Moss, 2 Darren Bazeley, 3 Ronnie Bull, 4 John Tambouras, 6 Neil Emblen, 8 Ben Collett, 10 Sean Devine, 11 Zenon Caravella, 14 Josh Maguire, 15 Joshua Rose, 18 Xiaobin Zhang. Subs; Danny Milosevic, 16 Noah Hickey, 17 Frank Van Eijs, 19 Naoki Imava.

Perth:
1 Jason Petkovic, 4. Simon Colosimo, 5 Jamie Harnwell (c), 7 Scott Miller, 10 Bobby Despotovski, 12 Hiroyuki Ishida, 13 Ante Kovacevic, 14 Jamie Coyne, 15 Billy Celeski, 16 Brian Deane, 19 Naum Sekulovski. Subs; Milan Jovanic, Stephen McMahon Jr, Nick Ward, Damian Mori.

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