The former Central Coast Mariners favourite pounced to score the only goal of the contest in the 14th minute with a free-kick.

Fellow Aussie Bruce Djite started in attack and put in an 80 minute shift before being replaced. James Troisi did not feature.

The win leaves Genclerbirligi sitting in 12th spot.

Elsewhere in Turkey Trabzonspor handed the initiative to Michael Petkovic's Sivasspor in the Super Lig title race as they crashed to a 2-0 home defeat by Denizlispor.

As for other European-based Aussie Vince Grella's Blackburn earned the honour of bringing an end to Manchester United's record breaking run of clean sheets but they couldn't do enough to get any points out of the match.

United open the scoring through Wayne Rooney but when stand-in keeper Tomasz Kuszczak committed himself to a tackle on  Santa Cruz the striker rounded him to score the first goal against United since they were defeated by Arsenal in November.

Grella came off in the 79th minute after Ronaldo scored from a free kick but an equaliser evaded Rovers and they lost 2-1.

Brad Jones kept a clean sheet for Middlesbrough's clash with Wigan. Just before half time Boro gave away a free kick on the edge of the box that Charles N'Zogbia fired in towards goal but Jones did well to fend it away.

Boro had no impact at the other end though as they have now gone fourteen games without a win. They sit second from the bottom after playing out a 0-0 draw.

Lucas Neill missed West Ham's 2-1 loss to Bolton through suspension while in the Italian Serie A Mark Bresciano returned from suspension for Palermo against Juventus.

Bresc played the full match for his side but they couldn't break down one of the giants of Italian football and they went down 2-0.

Still in Italy Grosseto skipper Carl Valeri played 77 minutes in the local derby against Livorno but after taking a 2-0 lead Grosseto crashed 3-2 to the Serie B leaders.

In the Dutch Eredevisie Gold Coast signing Jason Culina played the full match for PSV Eindhoven as they snatched a winner at the death to defeat FC Groningen 1-0.


In the English Championship Mile Sterjovski, usually used as an impact substitute, picked up more game time for Derby when on-loan Arsenal winger Nacer Barazite was injured in the 16th minute.

Derby went 1-0 up after 5 minutes and when Sterj was fouled early in the second half the Rams scored their second goal with a header from the resulting free kick. Derby went on to seal the match with a penalty, the final score Derby 3 Nottingham Forest 1.


Adam Federici's Reading have slipped into a form slump that has seen them out of the automatic relegation zone in the English Championship.

That form continued this weekend when Reading were outplayed by Bristol City and with Marcus Hahnemann back on the bench the result didn't look good for Federici as Reading went down 2-0.

In the English lower divisions Neil Kilkenny was back on the park coming off the bench on the half hour for Leeds as they defeated Cheltenham 2-0 but Hartlepool striker Joel Porter came off injured in the Pools 1-0 loss to Leyton Orient.

Mark Rudan's FC Vaduz finally got a win in the Swiss Super League defeating Bellinzona 1-0 and in the Scottish Premier League Trent McClenahan played the full shift for Hamilton who defeated relegation threatened Falkirk 2-1.