TA clubs, Mac Haifa victorious

Yellow-and-blue beat Sakhnin 2-0, Reds defeat Acre by same scoreline while Greens triumph 3-1 against Rishon.

By ALLON SINAI
Maccabi Haifa 311 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Maccabi Haifa 311
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Maccabi Tel Aviv made it four wins out of four in the Premier League on Sunday night, while Maccabi Haifa scored a stoppage time winner and Hapoel Tel Aviv claimed a hard-fought victory at Hapoel Acre.
Maccabi maintained its perfect start to the season with a 2- 0 win over Bnei Sakhnin and remains two points clear of Hapoel, which won 2-0 at Hapoel Acre, and five points ahead of Haifa, which beat Hapoel Rishon Lezion 3-1.
Yellow-and-blue coach Moti Ivanir got the reaction he was hoping for from his players following the 5-1 thrashing in their Europa League group opener at Besiktas JK on Thursday night.
Sakhnin didn’t make life easy for Maccabi, but Roei Kehat crucially opened the scoring just before halftime in the 45th minute before Eliran Atar ensured all three points would remain at Bloomfield Stadium with a cool finish in the 71st after Barak Itzhaki put him through on goal with a back-heel.
After dropping points in its last two matches, Haifa was desperate to get back to winning ways on Sunday and it very nearly failed to do so.
Asi Baldut gave Hapoel Rishon Lezion a stunning lead at Kiryat Eliezer Stadium, scoring from the penalty spot in the 27th minute after Bojan Saranov brought down David Gomez.
Haifa struggled to create scoring opportunities, but it tied the score in the 71st minute courtesy of a header from defender Itzik Cohen before clinching all three points at the death.
Rishon looked to be heading to a deserved draw on the road, but Haifa defender Sari Falach scored a dramatic goal in the 91st minute before Weeam Amasha wrapped up the victory with his sixth league goal of the season.
“The most important thing for us today was to win the match,” Haifa coach Elisha Levy said. “Clearly we didn’t play well, but we scored late goals and we can now focus on slowly improving our performances.”
In Acre, the visitors were once more far from convincing, but Dror Kashtan’s men yet again found a way to pick up all three points, with Toto Tamuz scoring in the 20th minute and Omer Damari securing the win in the 72nd.
“We reached plenty of chances once again and this time we also converted them,” said Kashtan.
Tamuz was pleased with the result after Thursday's 1-0 Europa League defeat to Rapid Bucharest.
“I thought we were excellent against Rapid as well and that we were just unlucky,” the striker said. “I'm happy we are back to winning ways.”