Erakor Golden Star

They will be joined in the last eight by Fiji's Ba FC, who beat Kiwi FC 5-1 to leapfrog Erakor into second place in the group thanks to their superior goal difference.

With their qualification destiny out of their hands, Ba FC's main goal was to ensure they do their part by defeating Kiwi FC before hoping for Team Wellington to do them a favour by overcoming Erakor at Port Vila's Korman Stadium.

Currently sitting in third place with a loss and a draw Ba must defeat Samoa’s Kiwi FC by a healthy margin in Friday’s opening game in order to leapfrog Erakor in the standings, before the hosts take on the table topping team Wellington to conclude proceedings in Vanuatu.

Following a narrow 2-nil defeta to Team Wellington and a dramatic come-from-behind draw with Erakor Golden Star, the Men in Black from Fiji will fancy their chances against Kiwi FC anchored to the bottom of the group without a point.

Dragon beat Vanuatu's Erakor Golden Star 4-3 in dramatic fashion while the Warriors thrashed AS Lossi from New Caledonia 6-1.

Reynald Lemaitre's glancing header in the 11th minute opened the scoring for hosts Dragon but Erakor needed only four minutes to equalise from the penalty spot.

The Vanuatu club twice took the lead during the second half at Stade Pater and an 84th minute own-goal appeared to have secured all three points, despite the visitors being reduced to 10 men.

Kaltack was prolific in last year’s group stage in Papeete, scoring in all three of Erakor’s games – a 2-4 loss to AS Tefana, a 2-1 win over Marist and a 1-2 defeat to Rewa. In fact, Kaltack netted all five of his team’s goals during the campaign proving his significance to the side’s hopes.

Tafea led the first half 1-0 after Eddison Stephen heads in a superb goal from a free kick.

After the break, Erakor came back strongly and saw Erakor captain Brian Kaltack leveled the scoreboard in style.

Both teams battled hard in the last 25 minutes but all their efforts came to nothing until the end of the match.

In the first division match results, Shepherds United 2-0 ABM Galaxy and Black Diamonds smashed Kings United 6-1.

Latest Standing:

Erakor captain helped the Golden Star lead in 60 minutes after he headed in a great goal from a corner kick.

But Tupuji Imere had different ideas in the last few minutes and saw substitute Jojo Kalmaire level in style five minutes before time as the crowd went wild.

The results see Tupuji Imere now second on the ladder with 14 points, two behind leader Ifira Black Bird and Erakor Golden Star FC now have 10 points on the ladder, 6 points behind ifira Black Bird.