Soccer: Yorke stars again as Sydney take final

Sydney City 1
Central Coast 0

An inspirational second-half from captain Dwight Yorke paved the way for the city-slickers in the inaugural A-League grand final at Aussie Stadium yesterday.

Yorke, after a hurried trip back from London where he scored twice for Trinidad and Tobago against Iceland, looked lethargic and out of sorts in the first spell but then provided the magic moment to set up the only goal of the match, much to the delight of the 41,000-plus crowd.

The upstate Mariners made most of the early running creating a couple of half-decent chances as the home side struggled. They came to nothing and allowed Sydney to work their way into the game.

Andrew Packer played a good ball in to Yorke in the 16th minute but he failed to get his head to it and Sasho Petrovski, behind him at the far post, also failed to make contact.

Stewart Petrie, in the 30th minute, had perhaps the best chance for Central Coast but he failed to connect as he would have liked and hooked a good ball in from Andre Gumprecht over the top.

The winner came in the 62nd minute. Yorke received and held the ball up well. He drew and then beat two Coast defenders before pulling the ball back to former international Steve Corica on the edge of the penalty area from where he angled his shot away from Mariners goalkeeper Danny Vukovic and into the net.

There were other half chances but none struck in anger.

Possession favoured Sydney marginally.

Both teams had 15 scoring chances, eight each on target, seven each wide of the mark. Clint Bolton, in the Sydney goal made four saves to Vukovic's three.

In the end, the Mariners' failure to convert any of the nine corners (to Sydney's four) they won cost them the chance to at least force the showpiece to extra time.

While Sydney deserved the glory which went with their victory and justified their pre-season and pre-final favouritism - there was some sympathy for Adelaide United who won the minor league (21-match round-robin) but in the end came away with nothing.