Gapare nets hat-trick in big win for Qantas Joeys
Danai Gapare scored a double as Australia finished the group stages of the AFC U16 Championship in emphatic style with a 6-0 win over Turkmenistan.
Danai Gapare scored a double as Australia finished the group stages of the AFC U16 Championship in emphatic style with a 6-0 win over Turkmenistan.
With Australia set to finish top of the group no matter what the result, Coach Martyn Crook decided to give everybody in the squad a run, partly forced by injuries, but also to conserve the regular starting players for the all-important quarter final. It was a terrific performance by team and gives Crook as few interesting days ahead to decide the team for the quarter final.
A win in the quarter final, against a yet to be named team because of investigations into over age players being used, will automatically qualify that team for the 2009 FIFA U17 World Cup. If the investigations come to nothing, then Australia will face Japan in the quarter final, while if the investigations are proven correct then Australia will play the UAE.
"It was a good game for us as the new players produced a good performance and we are definitely happy with the result at the end of the day," said Crook.
"We wanted to give some rest to the key players after securing our place at the top of the group. The new boys did well although they were playing for the first time together.
"We are pleased with the performance and the most important thing is that this performance will help us in our next game as we have a few injuries while we used players in different positions and we solved some problems," he added.
Australia started well and went ahead after seven minutes, a corner was flicked on by Trent Sainsbury at the near post and finished by Ben Kantarovski from 3 yards out.
Always in command, it was 2-0 in the 31st minute when Yabio was on hand for a diving header after Gapare had crossed back following a sweeping move by the Australian-s.
Just before the break, Gapare scored his first when he had an easy finish after great work by Nathan Farrell down the right.
Three minutes after the break, Gapare had a second and on the hour Dimitrios Petratos made it 5-0 when his power and speed saw him score with a terrific finish.
A minute later, a cross-come-shot from Marc Warren caught the keeper out and managed to sneak in at the near post.
Match Details
Qantas Joeys 6 (Ben Kantarovski 7, Tedros Yabio 31- Danai Gapare 43-/48-, Dimitrios Petratos 60- Marc Warren 61-) Turkmenistan 0
Qantas Joeys line-up: Aaron Lennox (gk), Nathan Farrell, Trent Sainsbury, Bailey Wright, Marc Warren (Petar Franjic 71-), Ben Kantarovski, Dimirios Petratros, Cameron Edwards (Chahine Noujaim 57-), Mark Perrone (Chris Bush 60-), Danai Gapare, Tedros Yabio