HONG KONG, June 5 (Reuters) – Talking points from the week in Asian football:

CUMMINGS HITS HAT-TRICK IN MARINERS’ CITY DEMOLITION JOB

Central Coast Mariners won the A-League championship for the first time in a decade as Australia striker Jason Cummings scored a hat-trick in a 6-1 thrashing of premiers Melbourne City in Sydney.

Cummings opened the scoring from close range before netting twice from the penalty spot after Sammy Silvera had doubled Central Coast’s lead with a fine individual strike.

Beni Nkololo added the fifth with a close-range header in the dying minutes, and Brazilian substitute Moresche completed a remarkable win for Nick Montgomery’s side in stoppage time.

“I don’t know what happened, we just beat the champions,” said Cummings. “They won the league, a great team, and we’ve just beat them 6-1.”

MARINOS JOIN VISSEL AT SUMMIT AS ANDERSON LOPES SCORES TWICE

Defending champions Yokohama F. Marinos moved level on 33 points with J.League leaders Vissel Kobe on Saturday as Kevin Muscat’s side scored twice in the final half hour to win 3-2 against FC Tokyo.

Anderson Lopes had given Marinos the lead inside the first minute, but a brace from Diego Olveira put the home side in front before the interval.

Anderson struck in the 62nd minute and Marcos Junior hit the winner with a minute remaining as Marinos pulled level with Kobe, whose game against Kawasaki Frontale was postponed due to adverse weather conditions.

Nagoya Grampus remain in third place, one point behind Marinos and Vissel, after beating Cerezo Osaka 3-1.

LI’S OWN GOAL EARNS CHENGDU VICTORY IN TOP-OF-TABLE CLASH

Li Shuai’s own goal in injury time earned second-placed Chengdu Rongcheng a 1-0 win over Chinese Super League leaders Shanghai Port on Saturday as the table-toppers saw their advantage trimmed to three points.

Li’s goal came two minutes into added time and ended Port’s run of five straight wins, leaving the 2018 champions on 26 points from 11 matches, three more than Chengdu and a further point ahead of Shanghai Shenhua.

Wang Haijian scored for Shenhua in their 1-0 win over Cangzhou Mighty Lions to maintain their push for a first league title since 1995.

LATE SHOW SEES JEONBUK DOWN TABLE-TOPPERS ULSAN HYUNDAI

Jeonbuk Motors overcame their poor start to the K-League season to hand table-topping defending champions Ulsan Hyundai a 2-0 defeat on Saturday that saw the leaders’ advantage at the summit cut to 10 points.

Cho Gue-sung and Moon Seon-min scored in the final 10 minutes for a Jeonbuk side that has struggled in the current campaign and sit eighth in the 12-team standings.

The game was the second in a row without a win for Ulsan but second-placed Jeju United were unable to take full advantage of the slip as they were held to a 2-2 draw by Gangwon FC.

Reporting by Michael Church, editing by Nick Mulvenney and Sonali Paul

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