Heat’s too hot as Fury fall off

THE FNQ Heat have continued their dominance over southern neighbours the Northern Fury with a thumping 5- 1 triumph in their National Premer League Queensland clash.

Saturday night’s result at Brolga Park was particularly disappointing for the Fury as they fell away badly in the second half to hand the Heat the Frank Farina Cup and bragging rights until next season.

The Fury were down 2- 0 at the break after first- half goals from Joshua Pin and Cameron Nucifora but managed to work their way back into the contest when skipper Jacob Crowley nodded home for his first league goal of the season in the 56th minute.

An incredible strike from Heat striker Alex Smith minutes later quickly curtailed the Fury fightback and further goals from Shaun Owens and Jamie Carroll put an exclamation mark on the one- sided victory.

Fury coach Ian Ferguson lamented missed opportunities from his team early in the second half and gave full credit to the Heat for their impressive 90- minute performance.

“We had a great oppor- tunity with a three- on- one chance and a goal there would’ve put us back at 2- 2 but we made the wrong decision and from then on it was all FNQ,” he said.

“The boy Smith scored a wonder goal, it was one- in- amillion and a fantastic effort from him to make it 3- 1 and from there I think some heads went down.

“They had a deflected goal after that which made it 4- 1 and the last goal they punished us again on a ball that we should’ve done a better job in clearing.”

The loss ended the Fury’s two- game winning run and continued a worrying trend of poor results at home.

It was a bitterly disappointing result for the home side against their northern rivals and the club went as far as apologising to fans on Twitter after the game.

“It was really disappointing to play like that at home, we just didn’t produce on the night and for some reason we just don’t seem to play well at home,” Ferguson said.

“We have been doing reasonably well in Brisbane and we have more points away from home than we do in Townsville which is a little bit disturbing.

“In the end we just weren’t good enough on the night, they controlled the game for 80 or so minutes and they deserved to win.”