Adelaide United Youth continued their goal-scoring feast of the second season of the National Youth League when they put four goals past a young Australian Institute of Sport team at the AIS Athletic Track in Canberra.

The AIS took the lead just after the half-hour mark of the first half which would have warmed the hearts of those willing enough to fight the cold to watch this game. A goal in the dying seconds of the opening stanza broke their spirit and some silly errors in the second helped ensure their demise. The result leaves the AIS proping up the table without a point.

With the effective temperature at around 3C the two teams took the field with the AIS making its home debut in the National Youth League. Only a recovering Fabian Barbiero was over-age, but his participation was to be significant.

The match was tightly poised for the opneing half-hour with the AIS playing one-touch football and Adelaide creating a number of chances. Ten minutes in saw Adelaide's Joel Allwright chip the ball over AIS's keeper, Aaron Lennox, but it also went just over the bar.

On 33 minutes the AIS struck. A short corner from David Talevski went to Patrick Dixon and he whipped in a low cross that found an unmarked Terry Antonis. The Everton-bound youngster had enough time to turn and send in a shot that Adelaide's custodian, Codey Larkin, could not stop.

As the half started to peter out some sloppyness in the back for AIS allowed Adeliade to equalise. Instead of sending the ball into the other half, the team tried to play it out of defence. The ball then fell to Allwright who sent it to Mattew Mullen and his layoff found a free Barbiero. The A-League stalwart finished easily into an empty net.

The AIS had a chance to regain the lead early in the second half when Trent Sainsbury beat Larkin to an Antonis corner only to see his header cleared off the line. That was to be one of the very few times the AIS threatened in the second period.

At the hour mark there was a slew of substitutions, both sides replacing two players and it appeared that Adeliade ganied the better of the changes and then struck on 63 minutes. A free-kick following a foul on Liam Wooding some 22m out was despatched by Canberran Dane Milovanovic as he curled his free-kcik around the wall.

Then with fifteen minutes left on the clock two poor decisions in defence allowed Adelaide to put the game away. On 74 minutes a through ball from Francesco Monterosso saw Lennox and a defender clash. With the ball free it was simple for substitute Evan Kostopoulos to find the empty net.

Two mintues thereafter it was all over. A corner from the left was not cleared, even on the second opportunity. The ball fell to Kingsley Francis and his low shot slid through the melee and over the prone keeper.

There was one more fright for the AIS when an audacious shot by Milovanovic from 15 metres in his own half saw Lennox scampering backwards so that he could grab the ball as it nearly fell over his head. After just over six minutes of extra-time, the game was over.

Joe Mullen, coach of Adeliade, was very pleased with the way his team played in the second half and attributes their pressure on the ball as the main reason for the win. "In the second (half) we concentrated on two things - pressure on the ball and quicker transition from our defense to attack. I think the players carried that out well." Mullen was pleased that Barbiero made it through the sixty minutes he was allowed to play and that Milovanovic is recovering well, only fifteen weeks from a major hip operation.

On the other side, Gary vanEgmond was not all too unhappy. "I think we have showed enough in the first two games that we are more than competitive." Yet, the ex-Newcastle Jets A-League coach also notes that he has a young team. "It's a real baptism of fire for them but they have to realise if they want to compete at this level that they have to ensure they use better technique and their decision making has to become better in regards to whether they are passing or without the ball."

In the other games this round - Central Coast Mariners BYE.