A double from Jason Hoffman and a goal from Mitch Nichols will give the Olyroos a comfortable lead going into the second leg of the tie to be played on Thursday at Ausgrid Stadium in Newcastle.

The Olyroos took only 15 minutes to open the scoring. From a Marko Jesic’s short corner on the left, Matthew Jurman’s header was blocked by a Yemeni defender. Ryall was on hand to pick up the rebound to cross the ball to Hoffman for an easy header from the goal-line into the empty net.

Playing in front of a home crowd of 2,597, Qantas Olyroos captain Oliver Bozanic almost doubled his team’s lead in the 29th minute. His well taken free kick was only denied by the crossbar.

Vidmar made a tactical switch at half-time to bring on Aaron Mooy for Isaka Cernak with the Olyroos starting to create more opportunities on the right flank.

Mooy had a great chance to increase the Olyroos lead in the 57th minute but his shot hit the woodwork and bounced back into the arms of the Yemeni goalkeeper.

The Olyroos finally extended their lead ten minutes later when Hoffman squared the ball to Nichols, who tapped the ball pass the Yemeni goalkeeper.

Yemen’s captain Munasser Akiad Ba Haj was shown a yellow card late the match for a late and dangerous tackle on Aziz Behich. After receiving treatment, Behich returned to the field during additional time and  went on a 60 metre run with the ball on the left flank before providing a through ball to Hoffman. Hoffman’s shot hit the post but he was on hand to collect the rebound to complete the scoring for the Olyroos.

At full time, coach Aurelio Vidmar was very pleased with his team’s first competitive match together.

““I am very happy with a 3-0 result, it could have been more. We miss some really easy chances and their goalkeeper made some outstanding saves as well and now we’ll hopefully go to Newcastle and finish it off,” he said.

The Olyroos will face Yemen again at Ausgrid Stadium in Newcastle on Thursday June 23 (Kick-off 6:30pm).

The Olyroos need to win these two matches on aggregate to progress to the next round of qualification which sees the 12 winners from Round 2 divided into three groups of four teams each.

The teams in each group will then play in a home-and-away format from 21 September 2011, to 14 March 14, 2012, with the winner of each group directly qualifying for the London 2012 Olympic Games Football competition.

The three second-placed teams from the third round will clash in a playoff at a centralised venue from March 25 to 29, 2012, and the winners of this group will meet the representatives of CAF (Africa) for a berth in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Tickets for the second leg of the Preliminary Round 2 - 2012 London Olympic Games Asian Qualification Matches between the  Olyroos and Yemen are on sale from Proticket.

Match Details

Qantas Olyroos            3 (Jason Hoffman 15’/90+3’, Mitch Nichols 67’)

Yemen                          0

Bluetongue Stadium, Gosford
Sunday, 19 June 2011

Referee: Hai Tun (China PR)

Assistant Referees: Yuxim Mu (China PR) & Gjige Su (China PR)
Fourth Official: Zhao Liang (China PR)

Crowd: 2,597

Qantas Olyroos line-up: 1.Andrew Redmayne (gk), 2.Sebastian Ryall, 4.Matthew Jurman, 5.Aziz Behich, 6.Oliver Bozanic (c), 7.Isaka Cernak (8.Aaron Mooy 46’), 9.Jason Hoffman, 10.Mitch Nicholls (17.Kofi Danning 79’), 11.Rocco Visconte (16.Mustafa Amini 72’), 14.Marko Jesic, 20.Matthew Foschini.

Substitutes not used: 3.Ryan McGowan, 13.Diogo Ferreira, 15.Scott Neville, 18.Dean Bouzanis (gk)

Yellow Cards: Mitch Nichols 19’

Red Cards: Nil

Yemen line-up: 1.Shukri Salem Abdullah (gk), 3.Nateq Hezam Qaid Rageh, 4.Ebrahim Mohammed Ali Gehamah, 7.Najib Ahmed Qaid Al-Haddad, 8.Yaser Yahya Al-Shaibani (2.Ali Abdulkareem Ali Qasem 86’), 9.Mohammed Al Khadher Al Anbari, 10.Samer Hasan Sulaiman, 11.Munassar Awadh Ba Haj (c), 14.Aiman Saleh Abdullah Al-Hagri (17.Mohsen Mohammed Hasan 70’), 15.Ammar Abdullah Qaid, 16.Kameel Tareq Othman Mohammed (13.Ahmed Ali Mohammed Aldhahri 70’).

Substitutes not used: 5.Amgad Abdullah Khairan,  6.Abdulaziz Mohammed Al-Gumaei, 12.Mohammed Mahmood Al-Muntaser, 18.Esam Abdo Qasem Al Hakimi 

Yellow Cards: Samer Hasan Sulaiman 67’, Munassar Awadh Ba Haj 67’, Mohammed Al Khadher Al Anbar 69’

Red Cards: Nil