Heart edge Gold Coast

Melbourne Heart have revived their play-off bid with a 1-0 win over bottom club Gold Coast United at AAMI Park. Substitute Eli Babalj scored the only goal 11 minutes from to end a nine-game winless run against the A-League's bottom club. Heart made hard work of overcoming a depleted Gold Coast side who were also without suspended coach Miron Bleiberg following his comments over the appointment of 17-year-old Mitch Cooper as captain for the game. Despite that, a United team made up mostly of youth-team players, following a horror run of injuries, kept their hosts at bay until late on. Returning midfielder Fred created the opening for Babalj, who had spurned a couple of earlier chances, to tap in and move Heart up to fifth.