Soccer: Victory consoles Wolves

By TERRY MADDAFORD

It was a bad news/good news weekend for Australian champions Wollongong Wolves.

Off the field, they were left shattered by Fifa's decision to scrap the world club championship in Spain this year, an event that would have brought the Wolves a guaranteed $US2.5 million ($5.8 million) payout.

On it, they shrugged off that disappointment by beating minor premiers South Melbourne 2-1 away to book a place in next month's grand final.

South Melbourne now face Sydney Olympic, who beat Melbourne Knights 1-0, in Sunday's preliminary final. The winner goes through to the final.

It was a good win for Wollongong, who had won the first1 at home a week earlier.

After chances at both ends, the teams went to the break at 0-0. But five minutes into the second half Wolves captain Matthew Horsley headed home to make it 1-0.

All Whites striker Vaughan Coveny, on as a substitute after an hour, capitalised on a mistake by Wollongong goalkeeper Dean Anastasiadis to equalise.

But the home team's hopes of booking the easy path to the final were dashed two minutes later when Saso Petrovski hit home from 20m.

In Sunday night's game, played at Parramatta, the only goal came in the 69th minute, when Olympic captain Ante Juric scored.

The Knights had their chances but some solid work from Olympic goalkeeper Clint Bolton kept his side in the game.

In striker Joel Porter, the visitors had the man of the match but he was unable to celebrate his 50th NSL appearance with the goal he needed to keep the Melbourne club's season alive.

Sunday's preliminary final is at Melbourne's Olympic Park at 5 pm (NZ time).