A large and noisy crowd were not enough to push Rockingham City to safety on Saturday as the home side went down 3-0 at home to their closest rivals, Balcatta.

In truth, Rockingham were never in the game, and it was no surprise Balcatta went ahead on 15 minutes with low shot that keeper Stout could have done better with. Things went from bad to worse as Ryan Kennedy was sent off a few minutes later for a high challenge.

Then on the half hour mark, things looked like they would take a change for the good as Rocky were awarded a penalty, only for Van Dieken to shoot high over the bar.

The real sucker punch was just on the stroke of half time when O’Connell made it 2-0 to the visitors.

The second half started and Rocky appeared to have another lifeline, as Jack Leach was sent of for the visitors, 10 v 10 with 40 minutes still to go and some thought it was game on, but alas it wasn’t to be as Ajan made it 3-0 on the 75th minute and the home side’s players and supporters had that despondent feeling and the game was over.

With just 3 games to go, Rockingham have to realistically win 2 and hope that either Balcatta or Gwelup Croatia don’t pick up any points in their remaining games.

In the state league, it was a youthful looking Mandurah City who had an excellent 1-0 victory of then 3rd placed Quinns FC. It was a close game but on the stroke of half time, Giyanto scored the only goal of the game for three valuable points for the home side.

Mandurah have four games left to play but are still 8 points from a top four space, so they will be looking to win all their remaining games and hope the teams above them slip up on the way to get into finals contention.