Pottsville Panthers and Lismore Thistles ensured round 13 of the FFNC Premiership was one to remember with huge upset wins over the league leaders.

Pottsville will take the bragging rights as the first team to defeat reigning champions Richmond Rovers this year and to do so away from home makes the result even more remarkable.

Rovers struggled for consistency throughout the match and the send off of midfielder Aaron Heffernan compounded the frustration of this first up loss. The surprise though is that Rovers struggled against the Panthers in round 3 only scraping a 2-2 draw, and most pundits expected them to go into the game full of determination to dominate the visitors.

However it was not to be with goals to Josh Boag and Simon Everingham and a huge dying minutes penalty save from keeper Nathan Wilson securing the points for Pottsville. Rovers only goal came from midfielder Ben Casagrande.

Lismore Thistles continue to defy the form guide as well with a solid 1 - 0 win over second placed Lennox Head. Lennox approached the game with a defensive attitude and suffered from the lack of adventure, creating little going forward.

Thistles always looked dangerous and following the dismissal of Lennox keeper Tye McDonald for a foul on striker Tom Boland raised their intensity, bombarding stand in keeper Pete O’Neill in the later stages of the match.

They were made to wait some time though to grab the decisive strike with Jacob Arthur scoring from the edge of the box, giving the home side the 3 points.

In other fixtures Italo Stars extended their winning streak to nine games with a 1-0 win over Byron Bay, Ballina secured third spot on the table with a 3-0 win over Bangalow and Workers gave their survival hopes a boost with a 2-2 draw against Goonellabah.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Competitions, headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.