Match #14 (25 Mar 2012): Unbeaten Streak Ended.......Agonisingly

It has to come, we knew it. But to concede defeat against Greyhounds, whom we knew we are capable of inflicting much more damage on them, was a tad agonising. Gan had a couple of certain goals cleared off the line and another coming off the woodwork, Teck Wah had a point-blank scorcher brilliantly tipped over by Greyhounds' keeper and another couple of half chances from Teck Chye and Mike, our efforts were simply insufficient to avoid the inevitable, the first defeat of the season.

Greyhounds lived up to the spirit of the no-nonsense breed, hounding us for every ball and driving us to the edge whenever we had the ball. 1st half was evenly matched but a scrappy affair. Greyhounds stole the lead when we allowed their midfielder to waltz through half the pitch unimpeded and send in a long ball that eluded every of our defenders for their striker to lob the ball over our static keeper. Teck Wah equalised before the break with a well-taken free-kick just outside the box.

A tactical change saw us seizing the initiatives in the early stages of the 2nd half, only to be dealth with by a sucker punch. A couple of long balls from Greyhounds sent the ball onto the right foot of their striker who brilliantly took it first-time to blast past the half-asleep Brandon. Our misery was further compounded with the concession of another soft goal. A weak corner somehow managed to slip through the grip of our custodian for their 3rd goal. We battled hard but luck wasn't on our side. Agonisingly....1-3 loss.

Match #13 (18 Mar 2012): Football Focused - Ignored Rough Play and Emerged Worthy 4-1 Winner

It was blessing in disguise that our Fighting Cock Trio were absent from this match against Kampung Hijau, otherwise their 2nd half's incessant antics would have certainly triggered a free-for-all. A relatively incident-free 1st half degenerated into crunching tackles and flying elbows from the kawan of the Hijau gang in the 2nd half, resulting in a few brusied lips on Teck Wah, Weng Kwan, Weng Khong and knocks on Rock and Gan. But we overcame their unnecessary rough play and walked away with a convincing 4-1 win over them.

How we ended up just 1-1 at the break bore uncanny resemblance with Liverpool's home form this season. We created a handful of scoring chances before being dealt with a sucker punch when Kampung Hijau's first and only goal attempt in the 1st half allow them to take the lead against the run of play. We continued to capitalise on their fumbling goalkeeper whose handling of the ball was highly suspicious and indeed, he made a mess out of Teck Wah's attempt and Gan pounded on the rebound for our equaliser. His fumbling antics aside, their keeper astonishingly produced two superb reflex saves to deny Gan's header and a certain own goal from his defender's head.

Despite the rough measures dished out by the Hijau gang in the 2nd half, we kept our cool to move the ball around albeit a tad harder with the water-logged pitch. While Simon's numerous long-range attempts were either too weak or sailed over, Teck Wah produced the perfect strike from a free-kick just outside the box to put us 2-1 up. Gan was then fouled in the box and Simon made no mistake from the spot despite a defender's attempt to play mind games on our Mr Reliable. Then, the goal of the match put the icing on the cake. Chor Guan, deployed upfront in the last 25 min of the match, turned his marker and left him dead, went down to the byeline before squaring the ball for the onrushing Teck Wah to get ahead of the keeper and nip the ball in. Simple flowing football! Worthy 4-1 winners, we were.

Match #12 (11 Mar 2012): Dug Deep for satisfying 2-1 win

Estar Loco looked the type of team that fancies form over substance. Togged in the blue and black of Inter Milan, they were darn serious on what adorns them relatively young turks, with the captain (and then subsequent changes) taking time to put the armband on. Wah siah (accord the meaning according to whether u prefer the second or third intonation of the hanyu pinyin)!

We humble MS didn't have our usual captain to flaunt the kind of substance that matters, so we were left with our greying hair as indication that we could be of some small threat. Off the go, EL were playing it tight and pressing hard, albeit without any real threat in attack. We were compact in defence and more incisive in attack, and created a few chances that should have put us in a comfortable lead, but the first half ended with the match finely balanced.

The pattern of the match continued very much in the same vein and to our surprise, we went behind through a well-taken shot from their nifty forward. We turned the match around late on with 2 strikes from Wah, assisted by a long throw from Khong, and a free-kick delivery from Simon. Great spirit shown in a thoroughly deserving win!

Match #11 (26 Feb 2012): Convincing 3-1 Win Over KS' Blues

Of all the encounters with Kok Seng's Blues, this  must be the most convincing win. We could have scored another handful more, considering the glaring misses by Teck Chye and Weng Khong and 2 superb saves by their keeper to deny the Tang brothers.

Not suprisingly, both Tang siblings added to their tally and Woon's maiden goal of the season capped a fine performance, though the scoreline did not really reflect our domination, especially in the first half.

The win was marred by a serious injury to KH, whose unquestionable, but really stupid, committment to block a certain shot came up worse. As Teck Wah captured it on video, the tackle did KH's knee in.