SAINTS were made to sweat in the sun at Staplewood yesterday as Australia's Olympic squad turned on a performance which suggested they might be a good bet for a gold medal in the Sydney Games.

For the first half of the game Saints, with James Beattie, David Hughes and Chris Marsden easing their way from injury, tried manfully to match the dazzling inter-play of the Socceroos.

But as the temperatures soared the young Aussies simply got hotter and Saints, with a few men short of match fitness, wilted.

Saints got to the break on level terms, with Hughes cancelling out a 12th-minute strike from Kosta Salapasidis, but the Aussies took complete control in the second-half.

They added three more goals, could comfort-ably have had six, and incredibly retained their togetherness despite a deluge of second-half substitutions.

It was a difficult game for trialist Mark Bentley from Aldershot to make any kind of impression on the right side of the Saints midfield. But for Hughes, there was the sat-isfaction of a 17th-minute goal, the result of a neat interchange with John Beresford and a deft bodyswerve round the keeper.

Australia's dominance of possession meant that Beattie was generally starved of service although he did get one clear sight of goal, only to hit a lame shot straight into the hands of Danny Milosovic. Dani Rodrigues later missed out in a one-on-one with the keeper.

Stout defensive work by Scott Hiley and Garry Monk kept Saints on terms going into the break but after the impressive Brett Emerton had put in Millwall's Lucas Neill for the second goal on 47 minutes, Saints crumbled.

Manchester City's Danny Allsop made it three within minutes of coming in as substitute and Australia's centre-half Hayden Foxo, by far and away the best player on the park, stamped his mark with a searing drive from the edge of the box after a well-worked corner.

SAINTS XI: Ziegler, Hiley, Bridge, Hughes, Marshall, Monk, Bentley, Rodrigues, Beattie, Marsden, Beresford. Subs used: Dryden, Gibbens, Bradley, Sims.

AUSTRALIAN XI: Milsovic, Neill. Baser, Blatsis, Foxo, Laybutt, Emerton, Culina, Salapasidis, Damianos, Rizzo.

REFEREE: R Styles (Waterlooville).

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.