Soccer: Kingz' rivals poised to break away

By TERRY MADDAFORD

With three valuable points in the bank following their spirited 2-1 away win over Melbourne Knights on Sunday night, the attention of the Football Kingz will be back across the Tasman this week, off and on the field.

The win at Knights Stadium lifted the Kingz into eighth, five points behind fifth equal Parramatta Power and Adelaide City Force in the race for a top six finish.

By tomorrow night Parramatta could be out of sight. Tonight they go to Soccer Australia in an effort to claim three points from the game they lost to Perth Glory on December 29. The Power claim the West Australians played an ineligible player and should therefore forfeit the points.

If successful, Parramatta would go ahead of South Melbourne into fourth place.

Tomorrow night, in an all-Sydney affair, Parramatta, who had the bye last weekend, play their catch-up game against struggling Northern Spirit. Victory would take Parramatta into third place and even further away from the Kingz.

The Kingz are away to Parramatta on Saturday week after playing bottom-placed Marconi Stallions at Ericsson Stadium on Friday night.

In other late-season games, the Kingz are away to Newcastle United (March 7) and have home games against Northern Spirit, Brisbane Strikers and South Melbourne.

Should Perth lose the points to Parramatta, they would have to share the top spot with the Olympic Sharks.

The Sharks maintained the pressure with a hard-fought 3-2 home win over South Melbourne on Sunday, the winner coming six minutes from the end from substitute Franco Parisi.

All Whites striker Vaughan Coveny scored for Souths.

Perth swamped Northern Spirit 3-0. Spirit's Alex Tobin had mixed emotions.

In a career stretching back to 1984, Tobin became the first player to notch 500 NSL appearances. But any celebration was muted by his team's loss and a rare yellow card.

Damian Mori scored twice for Perth to end the match just one short of becoming the first player to score 200 league goals.

In other games, Adelaide City Force lost 3-2 at home to Newcastle United, Marconi won the battle of the strugglers beating Brisbane 2-1 and Wollongong Wolves held on to head Sydney United 2-1.

In key games this week, South Melbourne are at home to Adelaide, and Newcastle entertain the Knights.