Glory off to winning start
Monday, 30 June 2008

James Robinson
James Robinson

Perth Glory has kicked off their pre-season tour of Indonesia in fine form with a 2-1 victory against two-time Indonesian Super League Champions Persik Kediri.

Glory striker James Robinson and young gun Anthony Skorich, who continues to impress during his trial with the club, hit the back of the net in the second half to give the visitors a well deserved win.

In front of a huge pre-season crowd of more than 15,000 local Kediri fans and beamed live across Indonesia to an audience of 100 million, the Glory reinforced the quality of Australian football with a performance that delighted coach Dave Mitchell.

"It's great to have the bulk of our squad together and the way the lads are combining on the pitch in a short time has really impressed me," Mitchell said.

"Persik are one of the gun sides in Indonesia and have brought in a lot of quality players for this season and it was nice to challenge ourselves against a top team and come away with the win."

"It was a very entertaining match, end to end stuff, and great quality from both sides. It's still early in the pre-season and we have a plenty of hard work to do but we will take a lot of confidence from this performance into our next match on Friday night."

Robinson opened the scoring just after the break with a superbly taken long-range strike that skimmed the underside of the crossbar.

Persik was left to rue a fumbled attempt to clear a corner allowing Robinson to pounce and give the Glory the lead after 54 minutes.

Both sides made changes late in the game as the heat and humidity started to take its toll, and it was the home side that initially benefited with an equaliser on 72 minutes.

The Glory though responded quickly through super-sub Skorich who has made a habit of scoring after being injected late into the fray.