Burleigh Heads take out Grand Final

Gold Coast Knights 0

Burleigh Heads 2 (Goodwin, Williams)

HT: 0-0

BURLEIGH Heads finished the Buffalo Sports Premier League season on a high by defeating arch-rivals and Premiership winners Gold Coast Knights 2-0 in the 2008 Grand Final.

Col Phelan’s men weathered an early onslaught from the Knights to triumph in the season showpiece thanks to goals from Murray Goodwin and Cam Williams, the latter coming in the fourth minute of added time.

The large, vocal crowd at the Croatian Sports Centre in Carrara were entertained by two committed sides in a high-tempo game that was more of a joust than a joyride, but in Grand Finals it’s the result that counts and Burleigh will care little that their performance lacked fluency.

While Burleigh popped the post-match champagne corks, the Knights were left to ponder a series of missed opportunities during the early exchanges. Rugged skipper Tony Pearcey, who battled gamely throughout, was unmarked when he headed over in the 7th minute and the normally reliable David Pilic fluffed his lines three minutes later.

Burleigh had been restricted to breakaways with Ben Longstaffe’s industry up front providing a much-needed outlet, but they almost opened the scoring a the midway point of the half. Con Boutsianis whipped in a deep free-kick that was cut back across the goalmouth by Peter Grierson into the path of the onrushing Luke Fiebig, who with little time to react, could only steer his effort onto the crossbar.

Boutsianis then brought out the best in Knights’ ‘keeper Dan McKinnon with a trademark 30-metre free-kick, before Burleigh custodian Kane Swift became his side’s saviour when he kept out Pearcey’s goal-bound half volley.

Just before the break Burleigh spurned a glorious opportunity to hit the front when they were awarded a penalty after Longstaffe’s run into the box was halted abruptly. Wade Russell’s spot-kick lacked conviction though and McKinnon palmed away to keep the score at 0-0.

Two minutes into the second period Russell showed the penalty miss had done little to dent his confidence as he engineered the opener with one the game’s few moments of true quality.

His superbly weighted, defence-splitting pass was played perfectly into the path of Leigh Ramsden who was hurtling down the right flank. Ramsden smashed his low shot towards McKinnon’s near post and the Knights’ gloveman did superbly well to get a hand to the ball but could only direct it onto the underside of the crossbar. As the ball came to ground Murray Goodwin reacted quickest and prodded the ball home to give Burleigh the lead.

John Stewart’s Knights almost restored parity within ten minutes but Swift denied Pearcey again, this time with a reaction save from point blank range. The home side poured forward in search of the equaliser but conjured little in the way of opportunities as their football became more and more desperate.

With the referee poised to blow for full-time, Cam Williams sealed the win for the visitors when he slipped the ball past the stranded McKinnon, sparking wild celebrations in the Burleigh dugout.

“We never really played in the first half and we got sucked into the scrap. We said at half time that we have to get hold of the ball and start stringing a few passes together and I thought we did that,” said victorious Coach Col Phelan.

“The Knights have been the best team all year so for us to come here and get the result is tremendous for us. It wasn’t a pretty game – a typical cup-tie – but at the end of the day we got the win and I think we deserved something for our efforts this season.”

Knights Coach John Stewart, while disappointed with the loss, said he was still proud of his troops for what they had achieved in their 2008 campaign.

“We were poor in the second half and just didn’t get going. We defended okay but just didn’t have much going forward.

“We’re disappointed but we still won the major prize (the Premiership) and we’re happy with that. We’ve got a good side but it just didn’t happen for us today,” Stewart said.

In the earlier games, Palm Beach took out the Youth Grand Final with a 3-0 win over Nerang, but failed in the Reserves Grand Final, going down 2-1 to Burleigh Heads.

Reserves: Palm Beach 1 v 2 Burleigh Heads

Youth: Palm Beach 3 v 0 Nerang