The win away at Stadio Gelora Delta helped push Pelita into tenth spot on the 15-team Indonesian Super League (ISL) ladder. It follows Pelita’s 1-1 midweek draw with Persela.

 “Chris and Troy were great on Saturday. They are good boys with good characters and they’ve really settled in well,” Radovic told au.fourfourtwo.com.

The A-League pair arrived at the club in March during the ISL’s mid-season break. Hearfield, 23, arrived from Wellington Phoenix and Doig, 30, from the Mariners.

 “Troy has been playing as a central defender alongside Chris but I played him on the right side of defence against Deltras and he looked great," said Radovic, a former Red Star Belgrade player and UEFA ‘A’ licensed coach.

“It’s not easy for the boys to come into a new environment but they’ve worked really hard and the team has responded as a whole since I arrived.”

A-League players are becoming increasingly popular in Indonesia with Brisbane’s Milan Susak (Minangkabau), Steve Pantelidis (Bintang) and Aleks Vrteski (Solo) also plying their trade in this vast country – though this trio play in the breakaway Indonesian Premier League rather than the PSSI’s FIFA sanctioned ISL.

Radovic, who took over Pelita last November when the club was in the bottom two, is confident that with seven games to go the club will avoid relegation and cement a spot in mid-table.

“We want to build for next season,” he added.

The owners of Pelita Jaya, the Bakrie family were recently in Sydney for talks with the FFA about potential investment in Australian football.

See this month’s FourFourTwo magazine Planet Football for a story on Indonesian club football.