Estonia round-up: Flora keep their edge

Defending Estonian champions FC Flora Tallinn consolidated their good start to the season by brushing aside FC Kuressaare 4-0 to go top of the table.

Commanding form
Flora were in commanding form on the island of Saaremaa, with Tor-Henning Hamre hitting a hat-trick to take his tally to five goals in three games. The Norwegian opened the scoring in the first half and, after Vjatseslav Zahovaiko had extended the lead just before the break, he struck twice again in the second period.

Leitan goal
FC Levadia Maardu were anything but pretty to watch but still managed to edge out JK Trans Narva 1-0 courtesy of a first-half goal from Vitali Leitan. The midfield player curled his left-footed free-kick low around the wall past Vitas Malisauskas.

Another defeat
Newly promoted FC Valga slumped to their third consecutive defeat, losing 4-1 away to FC TVMK Tallinn. Last season's top scorer, Andrei Krõlov, put TVMK ahead in the 13th minute, five minutes after Aivar Anniste had missed a penalty for the visitors. Anton Paitsev, Ingemar Teever and Maksim Smirnov were all on target in the second half, when Valga's Raido Raudnagel also scored.

Early fire
FC Levadia Tallinn defeated JK Tulevik Viljandi 2-1 despite going behind to a goal from Enver Jääger. The early fire, however, proved impossible to sustain and the away side effectively lost the match inside six second-half minutes. Midfield player Pavel Apalinski equalised and Konstantin Vassiljev buried the winner.

International break
The Meistriliiga now goes into a two-week break because of Estonia's friendly international with Canada on 29 March and their UEFA EURO 2004™ qualifier at home to Bulgaria four days later.