Croatia: Wins for Varteks and Hajduk

NK Varteks and HNK Hajduk Split kept up their chase of Prva HNL leaders NK Zagreb with 2-1 wins at struggling opposition on Sunday.

Late goals
Second-placed Varteks were frustrated for almost an hour at lowly NK Papuk Kamen Ingrad until Sasa Bjelanovic's strike opened the scoring. Although Papuk did net in injury time through Hrvoje Ratkovic, Oskar Drobné had already doubled the visitors' lead a minute earlier to secure the points.

In-form Vejic
Hajduk were quicker out of the blocks at NK Osijek and hit the front through Hrvoje Vejic's first goal of the day after 16 minutes. Petar Krpan equalised for Osijek just after the half-hour mark but the in-form Vejic cracked his second nine minutes after the restart to keep third-placed Hajduk five points off the pace with two games in hand.

Basement battle
In the battle of the bottom two, HNK Šibenik drew 1-1 at home to HNK Cibalia, who remain the basement club in the Croatian Premier League. Velimir Grgic's early goal looked set to lift Cibalia off the bottom but Ivan Milas' 72nd-minute leveller maintained the status quo.

Pomorac on the move
Elsewhere, NK Pomorac moved up to seventh with a 2-0 home win over NK Zadarkomerc thanks to a goal in each half from Jasmin Samardzic and Marko Grubisic.