Match Day 5 31/01/10 Kranji Sec

Excellent Sunday morning that started off brightly with team talk led by Simon and Chai, which was motivational and innovative. Brings the point across and hopefully understood by the whole team on each of their roles and duties. New rule implemented was that the team will be selected at 8.30am so as to get the warm up proper for the starting 11 and it's really enjoyable to see the whole team working together to try and achieve something.

Team line up started with Saran in goal, who was obviously very up for the game mentally and physically with the presence of the lady he brought. Across the back was Simon at the right, Jin partnering ZhenQuan who was back from injury and Daniel on the left. In front of him was creative force Kejang, with Rixian, Chai and Seng completing the midfield line up. Xianxi and Zonghui started up front. On the bench keeping players on their toes were Lewis, Fat, Asen, Nigel and Tien. Game started well with our side controlling proceedings and soon and truly enough the pressure paid off when Seng was fed down the right hand side and dummied past 2 players to put himself into space, holding his footing well he then provided a peach of a cross for Zonghui(WHO ELSE) to head in the first. Opposition was restricted to a couple of long shots which rarely troubled Saran who was in truth in excellent form. The team warm up served as a good platform to start off with but of course we will have to execute more of what we do in real game play. But it was still a good effort. Opposition keeper was looking pretty fragile and the defence was not really solid so the team had many players taking pot shots and making runs at their goal. Several corners came up and in truth i didn't deliver good enough balls i have to admit, but still the danger was not cleared as Kejang got on the loose ball at the edge of the area and hit it just enough to go past the keeper for 2 up. Soon it was 3 as Seng got into the right side of the area and lob the ball over the defence for WHO ELSE to score. Seng later admitted he was getting the ball for himself but who cares as long as the end product is what we wanted. Defence was playing pretty solid so far as the movement out of the ball out of it was fast, notably Daniel who was having some neat exchanges on his side. Some changes were made midway through as Lewis went in for me, while Fat came in for ZhenQuan.(Sorry if i missed any subs). One searching ball deep inside our own half from Chai put Kejang through but he lashed the ball wide of the post. We came in to half time at 3-0.

2nd half started with an almost identical line up which only saw Chai changing with myself as he had a blister. We were still playing alright but as the fatigue crept in we were pressed in our half and failed to get the ball out quick enough and didn't really make much of a play. It was only a matter of time the pressure will tell and one long shot had Asen flapping across but having seen it slightly late and wasn't ready for the shot it went in. Went back to 4-1 when Zonghui was the target of a throw in and he got the loose ball again and strike it beautifully to the far corner from outside the area. As we started to exert more pressure we were caught out once again when opponents counter attack to good effect as Asen was not alert to the shot. Credit to him for admitting to his mistake and that was how the game ended.

The post match talk and discussion was good, so let's keep it up.
P.S. Daniel, Zonghui and Rixian need not pick the ball anymore.