Rockdale Ilinden defeated the Wollongong Wolves 3-1 with the day belonging to Alec Urosevski as the star striker bagged a hat-trick and became the club’s all-time leading goalscorer with 134 goals at the Ilinden Sports Centre on Sunday.

The scene was set early when Dean Pelekanos thundered a shot against the bar in the third minute but it was club captain Alec Urosevski who netted the opener a minute later with a close range tap in.

Urosevski’s strike was cancelled out when Wollongong were awarded a penalty in the 31st minute that was tucked away by Chris McStay, back to haunt his old club, to level the scores but Urosevski was not to be denied and fired home a rasping free-kick to regain the lead for Ilinden and grasp the all-time Rockdale scoring record as his own and added a third on the stroke of half-time with a calmly taken goal exuding all the experience of years in this league.

A blistering start from the home side, backing up after a midweek Australia Cup match that saw Bai Antoniou suspended for this fixture, with the bar being struck by Pelekqanos before Urosevski was on hand to open the scoring with one of the easiest strikes he’ll ever net, a tap in from a couple of yards out after Vedran Janjetovic blocked the earlier effort only for the ball to fall at the feet of last season’s Golden Boot winner.

Wollongong, looking surprisingly sluggish, rallied but had little in reply during the early stages to the questions Rockdale were posing in going forward almost at will.

Urosevski broke down the left after a superb long ball out from ‘keeper Harrison Devenesh-Meares with the ball taken off his foot by Takumi Ofuka but a quickly taken throw-in for Brendan Cholakian saw a mixture of Janjetovic, the defence and woodwork conspiring to keep the score at 1-0.

The visitors were under the pump but showed a tenacity to stay in the game at this juncture but the cause was made all the tougher when they lost Darcy Madden to injury and brought on Jake Trew after 24′ minutes.

The Wolves were offered a lifeline on the half hour when awarded a penalty taken by Chris McStay and duly tucked away with a rasping shot.

Andre Tamaki upended Urosevski on the edge of the area which the striker took to blast home to not only regain the lead for Rockdale but take the all-time goalscoring record in the 40th minute. A thoroughly deserved title for the Ilinden stalwart and on the stroke of half-time, he completed the hat-trick when referee Jake Rose, playing an advantage with Janjetovic out of his area, for Urosevski to calmly slot home to give Rockdale a deserved 3-1 lead at the break.

Lachie Campbell came close to extending the lead on the restart when flashing a shot across the face as Rockdale picked up where they left off.

Lachlan Scott, Wolves’ Captain, tried to claw his side back into the match in the 55th minute when firing narrowly over the bar from 25-yards out on a day when nothing seemingly going the way of the visitors until Lachlan Constable saw red, his second caution of the match and was sent from the field after 62 minutes reducing the home side to 10-men.

As expected, the Wolves created a few half-chances but were restricted by a resolute Rockdale defence that defended from front to back to preserve the lead and retain the points they were holding.

Wolves Substitute Sebastian Hernandez should have squared the ball for Jake Trew in the 80th minute but forced Devenesh-Meares into a save with the bounce not favouring Trew and another opportunity was squandered for the visiting side. A case of what may have been.

But nothing could take away from the Man of the Match performance of talisman and Ilinden Skipper Alec Urosevski on a record breaking day scoring his 134th goal for Rockdale, a feat hugely deserved by the likeable striker.

Understandably, Wolves Coach, David Carney, cut a disappointed figure at the whistle and didn’t wish to add his comments on the game leaving Paul Dee, Ilinden Coach, to sum things up.

“I feel it was a real team performance today and a game we controlled from the start,” he said.

“Even after going a man down we still created opportunities and restrictd them to half-chances and we dominated the match from start to finish.

“It was important we started fast today after last week and we did that and got off to a fantastic start against a very good Wollongong team.

“Uro’s (Alec Urosevski) hat-trick taking him to the club’s all time record goal scorer was fantastic and I cannot think of a more deserving, more fitting person to receive that honour, a memorable day on many fronts but a fantastic achievement for the lad.”

Match Stats

Rockdale Ilinden 2 (Alec Urosevski 4′, 40′, 45′)