Despite a brave battling performance yesterday, Rockingham City’s fate in the WA NPL was sealed with a 1-0 defeat at home to Perth Soccer Club.

The result, along with other results had a double edged sword as not only were Rockingham relegated, but Perth won the league title, both with a game to go.

Perth started the game brightly and for the first 20 minutes, seemed to have a shoot on sight game plan. Brad Stout in the Rockingham goal was up for this and Perth gave up on this tactic and started to play the ball around.

Rockingham, however had the best opportunity to open the scoring but Collins put the ball over the bar in trying a lob, when a low hard shot would have been the better option.

Just a couple of minutes before half time, a through ball from the Perth midfield found Domfeh and his powerful right footed shot beat Stout to make it 1-0.

Rockingham tried hard in the second half but as like the previous games, had no end result for the effort they put in.

At the final whistle, results from else where confirmed Rockingham’s relegation to the state league, but with the good crop of young players, they will certainly be a force in next seasons division.

One opponent guaranteed to meet Rocky will be the local rivals, Mandurah City. The Dolphins travelled to fellow mid table side Olympic Kingsway and took a 29 minute lead through new player coach John Baird. This lead was short lived as Evans score 5 minutes later and then Sippits made it 2-1 5 minutes before half time.

Evens then scored his second towards the end of the game to make it 3-1 and to make matters worse, Alfie Brincat was sent off in the dying minutes.