POTTSVILLE Panthers got their premiership aspirations back on track with an impressive 3-2 win over Alstonville in their Soccer Far North Coast Premier League game at Koala Beach on Saturday.

The Panthers went into the match missing a swag of key players but their replacements did enough for the home side to notch their first win of the season after a first-up loss and two successive draws.

Captain-coach Dave Lonie was delighted with the performances of his players and was a relieved man at the end of 90 minutes of action-packed football.

“We needed that (win) badly,” he said. “If we can keep producing efforts like that, there’s no way we won’t be playing in the big end-of-season matches.”

It was an exciting tussle from go to whoa – the scores were locked 0-0 at the break but the Panthers could easily have been up 2-0 but for two disallowed goals.

“Cody Baker found the net but was called for a dubious handball decision midway through the first half and then 10 minutes later we had a header goal disallowed for supposedly roughing up the goalkeeper in going for it,” Lonie said.

However, the Panthers came out with plenty of zip after oranges and midway through the half had opened up a 3-0 lead.

Brett Dramon slotted his first after good lead-up work by Adam Rogers and Josh Boag, and notched his double with a perfectly-placed header off a Lonie free-kick from outside the 18-metre box.

Rogers and Boag again combined superbly for Boag to lob the ball over the keeper’s head for the Panthers to seemingly have the game parcelled up.

But Alstonville were not to be denied, scoring twice off corners to close the gap.

“That was the win we needed and I’m very confident we can go right on with it now,” Lonie said.

Ryan Howard, Rogers and Dramon were among the standouts for the home side.

It is expected that Josh Taylor, Nathan Alley, Glen Sheldrick and Blaze Coles will be available for selection next week when Panthers host Casino at Koala Beach.