Soccer: Phoenix fate hangs on result of Jets vs Fury clash

Robbie Fowler is expected to play for the Fury against Newcastle tonight. Photo / Getty Images

Ricki Herbert and his Phoenix players will take more than passing interest in tonight's rescheduled A-League match between North Queensland Fury and Newcastle Jets in Townsville.

Postponed long before the scheduled kick-off on Saturday as a cyclone bore down, the match is key to the top-six hopes of both teams with others in the play-off mix also keenly awaiting the outcome.

After briefly holding fourth place on Saturday after their 1-0 win over Adelaide United in Christchurch, the Phoenix were later pushed back to fifth following Perth Glory's 3-1 home win over Central Coast Mariners.

A win for Newcastle tonight would drop the Phoenix back to sixth and facing a testing end to the regular season.

North Queensland are expected to welcome back captain and marquee player Robbie Fowler for tonight's game after he sat out their last match following a stand-off with coach Ian Fergusson.

To have any chance of making the play-offs the Queenslanders would need to win their remaining three matches and hope other results go their way.

The four 25th-round games that were played produced wins for the home teams. In front of the biggest crowd of the round - the 19,258 who turned up at AMI Stadium in Christchurch was more than double the next best, 8613 in Brisbane - the Phoenix kept both their play-off and slender top-four hopes alive on the back of Jon McKain's 22nd-minute strike.

In a rarity, top sides Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC were both beaten, going down 1-0 away to Gold Coast United and Brisbane Roar respectively.

Gold Coast got home with a Zenon Caravella goal 14 minutes from time. The win took Gold Coast within sight of the league lead. They finished the round on 44 points - equal with Melbourne but trailing on goal difference. How they must rue that 6-0 loss to the Phoenix.

Sydney's hopes of regaining the lead were dashed when Sergio van Dijk scored a couple of minutes from time at Suncorp Stadium to earn Brisbane their eighth win of the season and leave Sydney two points adrift in third place.

Perth raced to 3-0 at halftime against Central Coast. Adam Kwasnik gave the Mariners some hope when he got one back early in the second half but they failed to add to that.

The key 26th-round games will be played on Sunday with Sydney at home to Perth and the Gold Coast entertaining the Phoenix.