12 June - Agilent : Saturns' poor finishing cost the winnable game as the Intel PEARL team took the early lead and came back behind to equalise.
Intel PEARL donning their White jersey flew in with their departmental champion title which concluded 2 months back, attempted to challenge the dominant Saturns. The young white knights fielded a mixture of players and blooded several new faces and with some familiar core engines. The PEARLs were lead by the think-tank and vocal captain Joseph that only played 1 minute during the tournament, marched into the game determined to out-gun Saturns.
Importing one of the brightest young stars of the tourny, PEARLS' Wan Z's started a quick attacking movements but the powerful 20-yards shooting could not trouble Saturns' keeper. The early sign of determination from PEARL in troubling Saturns.
PEARLs' Gugan releashed a right footed-lob after spotting Saturns' stand-in keeper TK was out of guard, and TK was caught in surprised and could not even attempt to tip the ball over. 0-1 the home side was down and joyous celebration by the PEARLS.
Almost immediately the shocks were settled and Saturns regrouped and replied with the similar manner. After picking up a pass from Davis, Saturns' Chong Seng brightly lobbing the ball over to PEARL's keeper Fahmi and despite the acrobatic attempts, Fahmi was helpless in preventing the goal from entering the net. 1-1 Saturns had levelled.
MOM Saturns' 1st choice keeper Ko arrived late and immediately substituted in to replace TK. The safe-handed Ko prevented waves of attempts from the roaring PEARLS.
Restrategising and regrouping after the late entry of several Saturn players, the orange men took the lead via an intelligent accurate passing from the back, engineered by Haniff. The ball bounce off and picked up by speedy Chong Seng that sent in a roaring strike thru Fahmi. PEARLS' defence could not match the pace of Chong Seng.
Into the second half, the attacking triangle of PEARLS comprising Kan, Wan Z and Syazwan dominated posessions and architecting waves of attacks. PEARLS' improvement can be seen in the evidence of growing confidence, of the left and right back joining the attacks. The Saturns has their in-formed keeper to thank, in successfully reading the opponents' attacks. The constant man marking to Wan Z by Allan also helped in keeping the speedy winger quiet for the early half.
A highball from PEARL towards Saturns' dangerous D area saw a mess-up situation between keeper, TK and right back, and Saturns' KB attempted to clear the ball out but the ball bounce into saturns' own net. 2-2 the scored were read.
The usual old style Saturns lacking sense of urgency and could not win the ball from various area means possession to PEARL and increased pressures to Saturn. PEARL's Fahmi kept the scoreline to 2-2 with several dangerous attempts by the Saturns. in a 1:1 momemt, Saturn' GK managed to stop Wan Z from scoring. GK Ko's superb reflexes helped preventing the header of Syazwan from bouncing in.
Saturn finally managed to break the deadlock via a nice setpiece corner, sent in by SengBak and connecting to Kah Weng with a nice shot. 3-2 the home side took the lead once again.
With the midfield engines on bench, the lack of midfield coverage of Saturns essentially cost the game. A clearance by PEARL's SK saw the ball picked up by Wan Z. The speedy Wan Z managed to escape the harrasing Allan and slotted pass Saturn's keeper and put the score to 3-3.
MOM : GK Ko.
