Easy victory for EPA . EPA 2 APOEL.O At Larnaca. Stadium yes: 1,£08, who gave. a good perfor- terday EPA defeated their vi- sitors APOEL,: by two goals to nil, Both goals: came in the first. half — one of them in the first minute. In‘a vigorous game, EPA's energetic van- guard proved too strong for the Apoel defence, and gave a most creditable display, al- though in the -second half play rapidly deteriorated into a battle of player versus player, the ball. ,apparently being of “secondary . import ance. A. defensive slip by Apoel allowed Costakis to net the the Larnacans’ first minute goal. This’ early goal encou: raged EPA, and from a free- kick by Tergian, a .Costakis header bounced on the top of mance in goal.’ However, the BPA attack was still the more dangerous and. they. ~ nearly. scored again whén ‘the ball was just cleared off thé goal-line by a defender, with Lellos out of position. Eighteen minutes of this half had gone by, when an EPA :forward had his - legs whipped from. under him in the penalty area -—— result a pe- nalty. Alexis toolt the «spots kick, the ball ‘hitting the. up- right, ‘but the referee ordered it to be re-taken ‘because of an infringement. From‘the «spot» Alexis this time sent in a hard drive “which ~ was. brilliantly stopped by Jellos, | Prom. this moment onwards: play became ~° unnecessarily. rough and Referee Cpl... Skid- the bar much to the relief of | more:had to caution several Apoel ’keeper Lellos. Apoel then made several sorties in- to their opponents territory, but their forward line never | moved cohesively, and it wasn't Surprising that their £i- :of the nishing in front, of goal left | much to be desired. oo More often than not Apoel | were penned in their own half | by the eagerness of the EPA forward line, and Lellds had a_ busy time in goal, Once he just managed to parry-the ball for corner when a goal seemed int. minent. Then in the 31st mi- nute he conceded another cor- ner. From the kick EPA outside left, -Digran headed their se-| cond goal — a splendid one. Shortly afterwards inside for- | ward Alexis sent in a eblinders | which the Apoel Keeper did well to stop. The architect of EPA’s good performance was definitely their pivot, Terzian, whose de- fence. -splitting passes had the: Apoel defence all at sea. Anas- tasiades and right half Loizos made a valiant attempt to stem EPA’s goal rushes but they had little help from their other colleagues. Five mi- nutes before the interval Apoel winger Gregoriades had to go on the line for attention follow- ing an injury, and practically on the whistle Nikos sent in a hard low shot which Pyrgos just managed to hold. Half time: EPA 2, APOEL 0. | Apoel conceded a corner in the first minute of the second half, but the kick was punched clear by Lellos. The visitors then tried to make up lost ground, but although they had. more of this half territorially, | they ran into a cool and stub-' born EPA defence. -Apoel’'s forward play was far too close against the quick-tackling Lar- nacan defence, and their bad passing invited defeat. Apoel went near to scoring when a free-kick by Lolzos was deflected on to the bar by Pyr- players on both | sides. For! most of the rest of the match Apoel had the EPA defence ‘fighting with {It’s back to the wall, but, with the exception injured Gregoriades, none of their forwards looked ‘like scoring and.on the final whistle, EPA. left the field de- eisive’winners - Referee:,.Cpl. R. “Pp, Blo more, Linesmen: §S/Sgt. . ” Hardie and L/Cpl. Murphy. ‘ Incident: “An Apoel player had his name-taken. for aTgu- ing with the referee, It should _ be realised by all players that the referee’s decision is final and should never be questioned. “It was noticed that the HPA players supported the official in this incident, a point on which they are to be’ com- mended. EW.P.
