Saturday's Premier League action saw FC Groningen, the table's former number three, suffer their fourth defeat in a row after losing 1-0 to FC Utrecht. Replacement Frank Demouge scored the game's only goal on 60 minutes. After drawing six times in a row, FC Utrecht secured their first victory. FC Groningen remain in fifth place, with FC Utrecht in eighth.

Heracles scored an easy 4-1 home victory over Excelsior. For Heracles it was their third straight win, for the Rotterdam squad their third straight loss. Heracles now are twelve points clear of the 16th spot, currently occupied by Excelsior, whose only hope of avoiding relegation they must now be pinning on play-offs.

When Excelsior's Daan Bovenberg was shown a red card some 20 minutes into the game, it took Mark-Jan Fledderus just eight minutes to score Heracles's first goal. In the second half, Mark Looms, Kwame Quansah and replacement Glynor Plet netted the other three. Guyon Fernandez scored Excelsior's only goal in the match--his 25th in his 60 games with the Rotterdam team.

Roda JC suffered their first home defeat of the season, losing 1-2 to AZ, who extended their lead over Roda JC to five points. AZ's Icelandic striker Kollbein Sigthorsson once again proved his worth and scored on 51 minutes. On 72 minutes, Roda JC's Mads Junker netted the equaliser but two minutes later replacement Maarten Martens secured victory for Roda JC, who ended with a man down after Pa-Modou Kah got his second yellow card in injury time.

The Vitesse - sc Heerenveen duel was an unexciting affair, with the wing players crowding the centre, making any decent football nearly impossible. Even so, there were some surprises, with Vitesse's Marti Riverola scoring with a header just before the end of the first half and Daryl Janmaat scoring the equaliser just three minutes before the end of the game.

(cl)

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