Our Central Coast Mariners secured second position on the A-League ladder after an away 4-1 win against Adelaide.
The Mariners went into the game in a race with Adelaide and Western Sydney Wanderers for the important second position to go straight into the semi-finals.
The game started evenly with both sides having opportunities, including one from Adelaide that forced an excellent save made by Danny Vukovic.
The scoring started for the Mariners in the 24th minute. Brian Kaltak started the move deep with a superb clearance header to Sam Silvera. Silvera in turn put a nice through ball to Cummings who in turn passed the ball to Marco Tulio. Tulio ran the ball into the Adelaide penalty box and chipped it over the Adelaide keeper into the goal.
The game looked to be destined to remain at 1-0 to the Mariners until the 42nd minute. STorm Roux laid a discrete pass to Ben N'Kololo who skirted past Adelaide defenders and with a beautiful left-foot shot put the ball past the defence and Adelaide's goalkeeper to extend the lead.
The score remained at 2-0 to the Mariners at half-time.
The early part of the second half was similar to the first half with both teams having opportunities until the 58th minute. N'Kololo made a run down the right-side and passed the ball to Tulio who in turn laid it off to Silvera. Silvera held the ball up momentarily before laying it back to Tulio who was positioned at the top of the box. Tulio took one touch before shooting to score in the top-left corner of the goal.
Four minutes later, Tulio thought he had a hat-trick but was ruled as being offside.
In the 87th minute, Harrison Steele had his first A-League goal. After some clever lead up play by Moresche by beating an Adelaide defender close to the goal line. Moresche cut the ball back to the top of the penalty box where an advancing Steele took a shot that was deflected past the keeper.
Adelaide scored in extra time but by then the Mariners had secured the win.
The win places the Mariners directly into the sem-finals who eagerly await the results from the Elimination finals to see who their opponent will be.
The two-legged semi-final is currently scheduled for the first leg to be played on May 14th, being an away game for the Mariners. The second leg will be played on May 20th at Industree Group Stadium in Gosford.