This week, our second league game. On a grass pitch and facing our nemesis, Marists, whom we have not beaten in our last 4 meetings. After last week’s disappointing defeat, we actually had 22 signed up for this game, with the 17 slots taken up within 5 minutes. And that’s how this game started.
We kicked off and within 2 mins, we scored. Stuart got the ball on the left, winged into the middle and clipped a nice ball into Colin’s path. With his first touch of the game, he beat the keeper and scored. At this point, our centre backs pairing of Jansen and SK haven’t even touched the ball. Shortly after kickoff, Colin scored again. This time from a header from Patrick. Jansen then intercepted a ball in our half, passed it to the Captain, who’s first touch squared to Patrick and he also first touch to Jansen who was surging through the middle. Jansen then beat his man and laid it on a plate for Colin to complete his hattrick. All these within first 10 minutes of the game. Marists were shell-shocked. Not knowing what hit them and were losing every ball to us. Colin got his fourth of the game a little later. I can’t remember how that was done. But that was how dominating we were. We were faster to the ball and our running down the wings were creating all sorts of problem. Benny was a big thorn in the opponent side. Causing a lot of problems with his direct running. Max was outstanding with his shielding of the ball and just being around to receive passes. I don’t remember us playing so well before. So Colin decided to give everyone game time due to the score line and made a lot of substitutions. Ron was playing upfront now. And he decided to play rugby when a through ball to him from Harold reached him. He skinned it all the way to the toilets. Marists were still trying and from one misplaced pass, the midfielder came through the middle. Joseph was trying to cover and was adjudged to have brought him down in the box! Penalty! No fault of Joseph as we all agreed that it wasn’t a penalty at all. Sherman then helped us out with a superb save and smothered the ball at the rebound. Just like last week. Saving penalties seems to be his forte now. Half time came just in time as we were already struggling to contain Marists. 4-0 up at this stage was an outstanding result.
Manager was very pleased with what he saw. However, he stressed to everyone the game is not over. Keep the focus. Keep the intensity. Keep the efforts going.
2nd half started and we continued in the same vein. Easily stopping the opponents from making any headway into our half. We then got a corner which I think was after Jerome’s lung bursting run down the right. Harold took it. Opponents claimed it went out and curved back in. Not sure about that. Their keeper then palmed it into the net. Resulting in our fifth goal. Marist was still trying hard and they did get another penalty after Ron was deemed to have pushed someone in the box. This time, Sherman couldn’t do anything about it and 5-1. We continued our fine work and Benny is now on the right. Taking a ball from Harold, he bashed his way through and crossed a delicious ball right into Ron’s head. Ron still managed to head the ball over despite just inches from the goal line. How did he do that? He was practically under the cross bar. But he’s trying very hard. Another cross to him saw him swung his right boot. Instead of heading to goal, the ball went up into space right above his head. Very interesting technique. Not many can do that. Final whistle blew and it was a sweet victory. Winning against Marist should be considered an achievement. But scoring 5!!!! Wow.
Credit to everyone who played today. You were all outstanding. The efforts and team spirit was really second to none. We really worked hard for each other today. Given the big and grass pitch, we were excellent today. Joe, you epitomize effort to every sense. You really showed us your commitment and effort. Well done. Special mention to Dave and Henry. Both are injured but showed up to support the team. Thanks guys. Let’s keep this great team spirit going.
We take a break from the league to allow others to catch up. Next week is a friendly then we travel to BKK for our international friendlies.
