Hamburg, Dec 8 (DPA) Mladen Petric scored a brace as SV Hamburg beat Cologne 2-1 in the Bundesliga while in the other match VfL Wolfsburg defeated Hanover 96 by the same scoreline. The win Sunday sees Martin Jol’s side stay fifth on 30 points, four behind joint leaders Hoffenheim and Bayern Munich. Wolfsburg are now sixth, four points behind Hamburg.

Petric opened the scoring for Hamburg on the quarter-hour mark, heading home Marcell Jansen’s cross at the far post, and the Croatian international made it 2-0 on 31 minutes as Cologne failed to adequately deal with a Hamburg corner.

Milivoje Novakovic pulled one back for Cologne seven minutes from time, striking a well-placed shot from 11 metres for his 10th goal of the season, but Hamburg held on for the win.

“The fact that it managed to get a bit tense near the end is quite unbelievable,” said Jol, whose view was shared by Hamburg midfielder Piotr Trochowski.

“We have to do better with the quality of players we have. We dominated the game in the second half and should have won by three or four,” said Trochowski.

Cologne have now lost four games in a row but are still safe in mid-table, seven points above the relegation zone.

Zvjezdan Misimovic was the hero for Wolfsburg, scoring from a free-kick on 63 minutes, just four minutes after Hanover’s Jiri Stajner had cancelled out Cristian Zaccardo’s first-half opener, which was beautifully set up by Misimovic.

Hanover were reduced to 10 men on 80 minutes when goalkeeper Florian Fromlowitz saw a straight red for a professional foul on Edin Dzeko.

With Hanover having used all their substitutes, midfielder Jan Rosenthal was forced to go into goal and, incredibly, he saved Dzeko’s subsequent spot kick.

“I tried to keep the team in the game,” said Rosenthal.

The 2007 champions VfB Stuttgart got their second win in a row under new coach Markus Babbel, 3-0 at lowly Energie Cottbus while Eintracht Frankfurt thumped VfL Bochum 4-0.

Werder Bremen’s poor season continued with a 1-0 defeat to SC Karlsruhe, who left the drop zone with their first win in eight matches. There were no goals in the Bielefeld vs Dortmund game.