Allow me to be so bold as to pass on my match report. I actually won a Newcastle Star comp to be the reporter on the Breakers game for the night!!! Some of the more vindictive amongst you may see this as a booby prize, but I did get 4 match tickets and an autographed ball.
The report appeared in Wed's issue so some of you Novocastrians may like to check it out. I'll be interested to see if they edited it to death or ran it in full.
It was a bit of rushed job in the end but I did manage to fit in plenty of cliches.
P.S. I got the crowd out of the Newc Herald but have since heard reports that it was 4,400 ish.
Newcastle Breakers notched up their first win of the 1998/99 season at Breakers Stadium last Friday night with a courageous 2-1 win over Canberra Cosmos.
Against a physical Cosmos outfit, the young Breakers team were perhaps inspired by the pre-match introduction of former Novocastrian Socceroos, and duly got off to a flying start. After just three minutes the Breakers opened the scoring when Brad Wieczorek sprung the Cosmos offside trap before rounding keeper Vilson Knezevic and coolly slotting home. Wieczoerek scoring his first ever NSL goal in the process.
The remainder of the first half was a fairly scrappy affair with the best scoring opportunity falling to Canberras Peter Magnacca whose shot at goal was narrowly fingertipped wide by Breakers custodian Bob Catlin.
The second half saw much more football played and it seemed inevitable that either team would eventually score. Much to the relief of the 4,883 home crowd, that decisive goal was scored by the Breakers. Brad Wieczorek found space on the edge of the box and when his shot thundered against the left-hand post, South Korean Sang-Chul Yoon making his debut for the club, was on hand to score the easiest of goals, tapping into an open goal with Knezevic left helpless on the ground.
However in the 81st minute, the Breakers defence threw the Cosmos a lifeline when they unnecessarily bundled Magnacca over in the box. Striker Peter Buljan stepped up and comfortably converted the spot kick but the Breakers held onto their 2-1 advantage without any further scares.
Best players for the Breakers were man of the match Brad Wieczorek, Tom Haythornthwaite and speedy striker Johnny Buonavoglia.
In the Youth game, the Breakers also had a victory defeating ACT Academy 5 goals to 2.