A Brave Fight By The Boys in White

The team is now slowly beginning to feel the loss of not having the young padawans around as you would have to admit that they add plenty of dimension to the squad not just in terms of numbers, but also pace and enthusiasm. So the ball rolls we'll just have to wait till August till the UK students turn up.

BLNG has always been a tough game for us, their competitive league experience puts them at least a notch above our standards and our players have always been wary about playing any fixture involving our neighbouring gas company.

The pre-game warm up involved plenty of 'roofball' inspired stuff, flicks, somersaults, mid-air volleys, keepy-uppys. All done whilst sitting on our asses next to the netball pitch waiting for the jerseys and drinks to arrive!

Yesterday though we were riding high on confidence, having been playing well over the past few weeks. Though we did start with no established goalie to stand in between the posts and with Yusra MIA and Yusriman having to attend to work. So it was G Khai who volunteered having done so well in the last game with a clean sheet half.

The first half was a scrappy affair, BLNG had most of the possession but couldn't convert any of that into goals for the most part. Mostly it was our stand in goalie saving our necks, but it also had to do with wasteful shots that couldn't find their target.

Stand out performance in the first half though was Arch in his usual roving free role. He was simply everywhere, in midfield where he started the game, then in defense both on the left and the right and back on the wings.

Haidi struggled somewhat with the pace of Aziz who was playing upfront for BLNG, and so he adopted the natural big boy strategy in such difficult situations, maximise your weight advantage, man-mark and then making sure by all means he doesnt turn you for the dead. That didn't stop Aziz from breaking free at one point leaving him with a 1-1 with G Khai. The ensuing hardhouse dive and tackle would've knocked the socks out of the BLNG front man, if not for his last ditch instinct to back off.

BLNG did however managed to put one through, much to the disappointment of our defensive lynchpin Hailmey who uptill then was also equal to what they could throw at him. So it was 1 nil to BLNG.

We didn't dissapoint though with our response and almost immediately we launched forward for a goal, and were rewardedwhen Amir D was judged to have been fouled in the box. Fadil stood up to take the penalty which he dispatched with ease.

The half ended with a draw and there was still all to play for in the second.

The second saw some changes, Amir S coming on hoping to break his scoring duck for the season but also adding abit of a threat upfront and 'muay-thai wannabe' Renny and 'hardcore' Rahimin slotting in to the centre back role.

BLNG though were a different team altogether in the second half. Their main playmaker Radzi coming on after sitting out the 1st half and boy did he make a difference.

He immediately changed the dynamics of the game by running circles around almost our entired central midfield and defence before slotting home to put them ahead once again.

The third came from a free kick, just off the box on the left. His low angled shot beat the wall and the keeper with ease.It was almost too easy for him.

But as he tired with the half progressing and his impact on the team's play lessened, we mustered a comeback the old-fashioned way, with grit and graft. Hard tackling by both centre backs gave them less and less upfront, whilst Pg Shamhary and Danan battled hard in the middle of the park to retain posssession. The more of the ball we saw, the more adventerous we got.

We eventually won another penalty when again Amir D was felled in the box. Fadil stood up for his second and he wasn'tgoing to miss.

Our third came from a determined run by Amir D. Julberg won the ball in the centre of the park, and his lay-off put Pg Sham in space on the right flank. At this point, Amir D on the left flank started a lung bursting run into the box almost frantically shouting for the ball, and Pg Sham didn't dissapoint with the quality of his cross which initially found Fadil but was laid down into Amir D's path and he easily tapped that into the back of the net.

So it was all square once more and when we should've dug deep to defend the draw, we drove forward in search of the winner. And that was to be our downfall as a quick counter from BLNG exposed our defenders and their numerical advantage in the play 3 against 2 meant that it was always going to be easy for them. A cheeky chip over Renny and G Khai gave them the winner.