Match #11 (27 March 10): 4-3 comeback win against Morgan Stanley

Match of 2 MS. Of course, the real MS won ......

After being rained out for 2 weeks, our first taste of football was at a crappy pitch - narrow, bumpy and uneven. Morgan Stanley took to the atrocious pitch condition better than us. Marine Sunday had been pampered with the manicured astroturf pitch for far too long. Individually, they were a tad faster than us to the ball and were more robust in challenging for the ball. It wasn't surprising that we struggled a little throughout the match, trying to adapt to the pitch, controlling the ball and squaring up to them. Morgan Stanley peppered at our goal early in the match but against the run of play, we stole the lead through Mike. After being put through, Mike calmly rounded the advancing keeper and finished off smartly. But we didn't manage to hold on to the unexpected lead for too long. Their pace troubled our backline. Instead of clearing the ball, Ng was a step slower than their left winger in reaching the ball and tripped the winger instead. Morgan Stanley's cocky No 6 equalised from the resultant direct free-kick outside the box. 1st half ended 1 apiece.

If we had started our 1st half badly, the 2nd half was even more appalling. The defence was clearly devoid of any coordination and cohesion. Chwee Leng and Teck Wah gave the ball away cheaply on the right and this allowed their speedy left winger to rob the ball and send it into the box, which caused a mayhem among Brandon and our defensive quartet. We did everything except clear the ball out of the box and the pinball ended up at the feet of their striker in front of the open goal. Despite clearly in the offside position, the referee allowed his simple tap-in to stand. The referee seemed to atone for this bad decision when he awarded us a contentious penalty for a handball, when he was clearly not in good position to have judged it. Poor positional sense, both sides agreed. But Simon didn't capitalise on the good fortune as he shot straight at the keeper from the spot. It got worse for us as Brandon's lack of concentration spilled a simple tame shot from Morgan Stanley's No 6. Again, their speedy winger benefited from Brandon's moment of indiscretion to tap the ball into the open net. 3 - 1.

Situation looked bleak with less than 20 minutes to go but Marine Sunday are made of sterner stuff. The moment of truth came from an unexpected header from Kian Hwa to narrow the deficit to 3 - 2. This half saw more of our usual play from the flank and turnaround came from both flanks. Teck Wah's ball into the box eluded everyone except Kian Hwa who arrived at the far post to put the ball beyond the keeper. Parity restored, the extra shot of adrenaline put more spring in our steps and Morgan Stanley suddenly possessed the look of disbelief. More bewilderment was piled onto them. Kian Hwa exchanged a one-two with Weng Khong down the left before squaring a low cross into the box. Their clearance came off the shin of Mike and it was our turn to pick up the durian. Morgan Stanley came at us strongly in the closing stages but we managed to fend them off to complete another remarkable and memorable comeback. 4 - 3! A scrappy performance but a hugely satisfying win.