Star striker Michael Trajkovski has been in red-hot form for Andrew Paine's Flame side in the Football NSW League Two Men's competition.

SIGN UP: To the new Illawarra Football Weekly newsletter

Currently third on the ladder, just one point behind Newcastle Jets in first, Trajkovski has been the Flame's finishing product, scoring eight times already. It's a feat which sees him third on the golden boot standings.

Ahead of the Flame's upcoming clash at Ian McLennan Park (Saturday, March 30) against Central Coast United, head coach Paine heaped plenty of praise on his in-form forward.

"He's a really cool guy," Paine said.

"I've been in contact for him for a few years. He deserves everything he's getting this year. He came in and seemed like he was really driven with a point to prove that he wanted to succeed here.

"He's going 100 miles an hour at training with every single thing we do. I couldn't give him enough praise for how he's going at the moment."

It's been quite the start to life at the Flame for former Helensburgh Illawarra Premier League coach Paine.

With five wins, a draw, and their first loss at the hands of Inner West Hawks last game, he has led the Football South Coast side to an impressive start to 2024.

"Coming in there were a lot of moving parts, a lot of new players and that kind of stuff," he said.

"I'm trying to develop our own style of how we want to play this year. So obviously I was very happy to get all those early wins under the belt. The guys have been working hard.

"We had a bump in the road last week, but that's to be expected. In a 28 game comp, we're not going to win them all.

"So straight back to business this week. We didn't even talk about the loss. We're going to go back to what we do and try to prepare for another tough one [against Central Coast]."

Kickoff for the match against Central Coast is 3:15pm.