QLD Wrap: Western Pride cause consecutive upsets

Brisbane City's premiership chances took a heavy blow in Round 17 of the National Premier Leagues Queensland as they fell victim to another Western Pride upset.

That result was good news for league-leaders Olympic FC, winners over Sunshine Coast, while Far North Queensland prevailed in a 10th vs. 11th fixture.

Peter Drager scores for Western Pride in the 87th to secure the win. Credit: Football Qld

Redlands United 5 (Macuace 22', 71' Way 34', 41' Fyfe p.88')
QAS 1 (Cronin 61')

Redlands United breezed past the Queensland Academy of Sport at Cleveland Showgrounds on Friday night as three of their key attacking protagonists helped the hosts into second.

By the time midfielder Sam Cronin put the QAS on the scoreboard in the 61st minute, Redlands had already had already netted three times and sewn up their victorious response to last weekend's 3-1 defeat at home to Western Pride.

The Academy will face their third top-four team in three weeks when they visit City in Round 18, while Redlands can consolidate second as they host Palm Beach.

Palm Beach Sharks 1 (OG 47')
Northern Fury 2 (Edwards 25' Eisenhut 81')

Northern Fury's late finals charge continued to gather pace on Saturday as they managed a third straight win and sixth match unbeaten with a 2-1 defeat of Palm Beach at the Mallawa Complex.

The visiting Fury opened the scoring after a quarter of an hour thanks to Robin Edwards' first goal for the club, on which handed them a lead at half-time.

Three points separated the teams prior to kick-off and when an own-goal from a defender-goalkeeper mixup had the Sharks level just two minutes after the break, they were thinking about parity on the NPL Queensland ladder.

However, Fury retain designs on the top four and pulled to within six points of fourth when Michael Eisenhut stole possession in midfield, regained possession from a one-two with Alex Read, and finished low for an 81st minute matchwinner.

Western Pride 4 (Munn 1' Woodruffe 29' Jordan 32' Drager 87')
Brisbane City 2 (Murray 45' Joo 90+1')

A three-goal first half catapulted Western Pride to a second consecutive upset victory, overcoming Brisbane City 4-2 at North Ipswich Reserve on Saturday.

Pride got off to a dream start when Devon Munn poked home a goalmouth scramble reminiscent of 300 inside a minute for a 1-0 lead, an advantage added to by Russell Woodruffe's emphatic 29th minute volley and Will Jordan's follow-up on a Woodruffe effort which struck the crossbar.

While Antonio Murray's quick-thinking turned in a first for City seconds before the break, Pride avoided a second-half lapse in concentration and were instead next to score - loping centre-forward Peter Drager striding away from City's defence for his 10th goal of the season.

Although substitute Jay Joo pulled one back in stoppage time, the boys in blue will have to recover from their first defeat in fourteen matches, the loss of second place and departure of star duo Eric Frazier and Thomas Shannon to VPL side Dandedong Thunder.

CQFC Energy 3 (Waterland 17', 90+3' Miller 23')
FNQ FC Heat 4 (Beverly 32' Fernandez 37' Morrison 51', 87')

Far North Queensland came from two goals down to pull eight points clear of the bottom two with a 4-3 away victory over fellow strugglers Central Queensland on Saturday night.

CQFC scored both the opening and final goals of the game at Rugby Park but Heat stole the points with four of their own between those bookends.

Sander Waterland and Jordan Miller helped Energy to a 2-0 lead inside the opening 25 minutes and surely to hope of a third win of the campaign; the visitors, though, turned the match on its head courtesy of a pair of headers from Charlie Beverly and Simon Fernandez in six minutes beyond the half-hour.

After CQFC 'keeper Tim English denied them a lead from the penalty spot early in the second half, striker Cameron Morrison took control of the match for FNQ - first, from a penalty box header and later sealing the points with a venomous low strike.

Waterland grabbed his second and Energy's third deep into stoppage time, and the attacker will need to be in form having seen 17-goal striker Chris Geddes quit the club following the match.

Sunshine Coast FC 2 (Dwyer 6' Sato 26')
Olympic FC 3 (Byrne 13', 61' Smits 67')

Sunshine Coast twice led Olympic FC at Sunshine Coast Stadium on Sunday afternoon but were unable to prevent the league-leaders from claiming a comeback victory.

Midfielder Leon Dwyer softened the absence of Nico Bechar for the hosts with a stunning long-range opener in the 6th minute, though that was cancelled out by Olympic captain Danny Byrne's first of the day seven minutes later.

Takanori Sato then restored a lead which Fire held for a significant time, nodding on from close range after the ball had been knocked back into the penalty area.

It took until the hour mark but the visitors illustrated their championship quality by first finding another equaliser in Byrne's second and six minutes later a winner via the head of league top-scorer Tim Smits.