The Brisbane Strikers produced perhaps their bravest and most determined performance of the season at Palm Beach last night, bringing home all three points from a hard-fought 1-0 victory over the Palm Beach Sharks and, in the process, becoming the first team to beat the Premier League leaders this year.

Mallawa Drive was certainly no place for the faint-hearted as the two teams produced a rugged encounter that reflected the fact that both teams are genuine finals aspirants and have built their challenge on having the tightest defences in the competition.

Strikers coach Bobby Hamilton made three positional changes for a game that he targeted two weeks ago as one he desperately wanted to take at least a point from. At the back, skipper Matt Bell and the impressive Adam Webber were switched so that Webber played in the middle and Bell on the right. Meanwhile, Hamilton continued his ceaseless search for a suitable striking partner for Greg Di Losa by pushing Matt Hornby forward from midfield to make way for Damien Waugh's return from suspension. The changes seemed not only to make sense, but also produced the goods.

The game was tough and uncompromising from the start, with the early tackling producing plenty of bite while the pace gauge was set on "high". The Strikers were the first to fashion an opportunity when Di Losa set up Waugh for a shot that was comfortably gathered in by Andrew Purnell-Webb in the Palm Beach goal.

It was seven further minutes until the home side caused Strikers goalkeeper Antony Hall an anxious moment. Then, a neat training ground dead-ball move saw an outswinging corner kick delivered low to Palm Beach striker Daniel Fung. Fung connected with sweet timing, but not quite enough accuracy, to send a low shot screaming past Hall's left hand upright.

Three minutes later, though, the Strikers were almost poisoned by their own hand when Hall was called upon to make a truly exceptional save by - of all people - Webber. As Palm Beach swung in a dangerous high ball from the right, Webber was caught in two minds as he jumped to clear the ball. Webber was apparently trying to head it out for a corner, but his contact sent the ball arrowing inside Hall's right post only for the 'keeper to produce startling reflexes to dive wide to his right to keep out a ball he could scacely have been expecting.

The Strikers were having slightly the better of a willing contest, as both sides flung themselves into things. In the first quarter of the game, Waugh and Stewart Drinkeld were marginally on top of their central midfield counterparts, Matt Smith and Neil Munro while Bell and Michael Butters on the right flank had the better of Shane Robinson and John Costello. The only inroads Palm Beach were making were coming down the other wing, where Aaron McGuinness and Daniel Fung were occasionally combining with speed and precision to threaten Daniel Leach and Michael Zullo on the left side of the Strikers' defence.

But while the Strikers had the better territory they produced little in terms of penetration until the twenty-sixth minute when Webber once again demonstrated his growing proficiency with the long ball. From almost as far out as the half way line, he picked out the head of Di Losa, positioned towards the left of the Palm Beach eighteen yard box, with deadly accuracy. If the same could have been said of Di Losa's header the Strikers would have been 1-0 up moments later. However, Di Losa's header cleared Purnell-Webb's crossbar with the goalkeeper beaten.

Four minutes later Webber went forward for a Gilfedder corner kick and, in a move which mirrored that of the opposition earlier in the game, powerfully connected with a low, outswinging corner. Unfortunately for Webber, he was unable to keep his left foot shot down and it sailed over the bar.

Palm Beach responded four minutes later when they finally unhinged Bell and Butters' understanding with a move down the right which finished with Costello being set up by Russell Miner for a shot on the turn. Hall again reacted smartly, getting down well to save.

In the thirty-ninth minute the Strikers got the vital first goal when Webber again got forward to good effect. This time, the carrot that attracted Webber's interest was a free kick on the left, about thirty-five metres from goal, which was taken by Gilfedder. Gilfedder sent a high cross dipping beyond Purnell-Webb's far post. With the Palm Beach defence standing flat-footed as the ball seemed headed beyond the byline, Webber chased what appeared to be a lost cause and managed to hook the ball back across the goalmouth to where Hornby outjumped his marker to nod the ball high into the Palm Beach goal. Although Purnell-Webb managed to catch it, he had been unable to stop it crossing the line and, to the accompaniment of much shouting and pointing from the Strikers, the referee signalled a goal.

Three minutes later, and before the home side had recovered its composure, the Strikers could have been in again. Di Losa received the ball with his back to goal and shielded it well from the Palm Beach defence to square a pass that found the forward run of Hornby, but this time the youngster's attempted finishing shot lacked conviction and it was comfortably saved when he probably should have done better.

The Strikers went into the break ahead, to the insistent vocal accompaniment of their travelling supporters who were, once again, making a pretty good fist of turning the contest into a home fixture for the visiting team.

Within two minutes of the restart, the Strikers wasted two good opportunities to put a gap between themselves and their opponents when first Di Losa, and then Butters, failed to test Purnell-Webb with good opportunities.

Hamilton has frequently lamented the failure of his forwards to turn the screw this season, and if he was again frustrated the events of the next thirty minutes or were to show why. Having been given a 'life', Palm Beach lifted the intensity of their efforts, not to mention the ferocity of their tackling, and with midfielder Brad Ditton (who had come on as a substitute at the beginning of the half) beginning to add some quality to their midfield play, they gained the all-important ascendancy in the middle of the park. The Strikers, perhaps due to the fact that almost half their team had been unable to train during the week because of persistent injuries, seemed to find much of the last third of the game both physically draining and mentally taxing.

Although the Strikers briefly threatened when Gilfedder had a well struck shot brilliantly saved by Purnell-Webb in the sixty-fourth minute, they were under the pump from the fiftieth to the eighty-second minute. Ditton battered Hall's right hand upright with a piledriver from about twenty metres in the sixty-eighth minute, but that was merely a prelude to the assault which followed over the next ten minutes. With Palm Beach typically starting things on the left before stretching the Strikers' defence wide to the right, Hall was forced into three high-quality saves as the Sharks forwards and midfielders found space to the right of Hall's penalty area.

While Hall was performing his heroics, the physical battles had become more and more desperate, with Palm Beach in particular transgressing the line between legitimate aggression and dangerous play. One tackle by substitute midfielder, Gavin Peddle, had Strikers supporters livid when Peddle received only a yellow card for his exertions in sending Zullo airborne with what appeared to be a full-blooded, driving assault on his ankles.

However, the next major transgression, which occurred in the eighty-second minute when Palm Beach skipper and defender Adam Evans appeared to connect with Damien Waugh , after a tackle by the Strikers midfielder, resulting in more severe consequences for the home side when Evans was shown his second yellow card for the evening and left the field to tumultuous approval from the visiting supporters.

While the home side were reduced to ten men, it did little to stop their forward momentum but although they continued to press, Hall's goal was threatened only by a header from an unmarked Palm Beach forward with just minutes left. To the relief of the Strikers' supporters, Hall did not have to move to clutch a ball that was directed straight at him.

A further ruthless tackle on Di Losa inside the last five minutes resulted in further anxieties for Hamilton. His star striker was forced to see out the match virtually on one leg, as the coach had used up all his substitutes in the previous twenty minutes in an attempt to stem the tide by bringing on Ross Duncan for Butters, Ross Cuneen for Gilfedder and Carl Giannangello for Matt Hornby.

One leg, however, was enough to enable Di Losa to play a vital role over the last three minutes of the game as he held the ball up on several occasions to bring team mates into play and relieve pressure, and even managed a run down the left wing deep towards the corner flag as he combined with Cunneen to harass the Sharks defence and soak up time.

In the end, with the frustrations of the home side climbing as they ran out of time, the Strikers rubbed salt into their wounds in the last minute of play when Bell found the energy to go on a determined run from inside his own half deep into Sharks territory, before slipping an incisive pass to Giannangello on the right. The young right winger bore down on Purnell-Webb's goal and, instead of squaring it across the six-yard box, elected to try to beat the 'keeper at his near post. Purnell-Webb, though, was not about to fall victim to the goalkeeping trade's most despised three-card trick and produced a good save to keep the score at 1-0.

The final whistle was soon blown, to the resounding cheers of the visiting supporters and the disappointment of the home crowd. The Strikers, still a player or three short of their strongest eleven, had managed to dethrone the table-toppers in their own backyard, and Hamilton must now be looking forward to the rest of the season with considerably more comfort and optimism than was possible only a fortnight ago.

For his exhausted team, however, there was little left to be done other than to group together and walk to the southern end of the ground to acknowledge the unstinting support of their supporters, and reflect on a job well done, as they entered a warm-down routine that was richly earned.

This had been a courageous performance even if, as was the case last week, there was room for more composure in the latter stages of the game. This much was acknowledged later by Hall, who later commented: "I thought we showed a lot of character. Everyone pulled their weight, and the young guys stepped up. I was very happy, particularly as I have been on the end of a few canings from them (Palm Beach) in the past.

"It was a very physical game. In the past Palm Beach have not been that physical....but they gave as good as they got, and then some".

Outstanding performances were produced by most of the men in yellow shirts last night, most notably by Hall, Webber, Leach and Bell at the back.

And if the other member of the back line, Zullo, had been perhaps been caught out through marking territory rather than his opposing player on a couple of occasions in the second half (when Palm Beach appeared to target him not only tactically but also physically), he had also produced some of the best moments of the game when in possession. It has to be said that there is something about the sight of Zullo on the ball, moving with speed of foot and thought in apparently equal measure, that sends shivers down the spine and reminds football supporters of exactly why they love their game.

Finally, this report would not be complete from the perspective of Strikers supporters without mention of the final image of a memorable night. That occurred when a portly and furry brown figure draped in a yellow shirt was seen hurtling over the touchline fence to finish face down in the field of play after an awkward swan dive - accompanied by delighted shouts of support from the delighted Strikers faithful!