April 26, 2004

Roundup of the week S-league

April 22, 2004 Jalan Besar

Showing no pity for the slump Albirex Niigata is experiencing; the Young Lions edge out a 1-0 victory against the Swans at Jalan Besar Stadium

The Young Lions matched the Japanese team strength for strength with the match evenly balanced. The deadlock was eventually broken with a Agu Casmir winner in the 63 minutes.

The Swans have now dropped to mid-table after collecting only 2 points from their last 4 matches while the Young Lions took over their place in third position

April 22, 2004 Toa Payoh

The Stags closed the gap on the Rams to 4 points while opening a 3 points gap with third place Young Lions a week every result went in the favour of the Stags.

The Stags went ahead in the match against the Tigers with a Noh Alam Shah goa.l Moving out of defence, the ball was relayed to Steven Tan who broke the offside trap with the flag staying down. Surging upfront, Steven Tan saw Noh Alam Shah in the box so unleash a tantalizing cross for the striker to head past Bashir Khan.

With the lead the Stags proved the stronger side the longer the match went on.

However the Stags will pay for their inability to kill off the Tigers when sloppy defending in their defensive third of the pitch saw Balestier win possession, from that the ball was relayed to Hae Sae Gyu at the edge of the box & the Korean fired a shot which went past Rezal Hassan into the net.

Still if the Tigers thought they had a chance to get something from the match, they were to be proven wrong with the Mirko Grabovac show. Immediately from the restart, Noh Alam Shah chased a high ball into the box & got the ball shielding it away from the defender before releasing it for the on rushing Santi Chaiyaphuak. The Thai got the ball, raced to the by-line before crossing back. It was too high for the defender in the centre but not for Mirko Grabovac, who leapt high to head past Bashir Khan.

It was not over as 4 minutes later a ball out of defence found Mirko Grabovac who was lurking alone. Bashir Khan ran out of his box to intercept but Mirko was quicker. After getting the ball under control & wriggling free of the defenders converging on him, he tapping the ball into an empty net from slightly past the half-way line for the Stags to go 3-1 up.

Mirko Grabovac got his hat-tick when he closed in on goal & slotted the ball past Bashir Khan after a cross from he left hand side.

April 23, 2004 Bishan

The Protectors showed their critics the league championship was still alive with a 6-1 thumping of league leader the Rams.

The Rams without player-coach Simon Clark in defence was cruelly exposed by the pace of Indra Sahdan & the deadly finishing of Egmar Goncalves. The twin terrors shared the 6 goals among themselves with Egmar Goncalves getting & Indra Sahdan getting 2 goals

April 24, 2004 Bedok

The Eagles had a great with 2 coming from behind victories.

Earlier in the week the Eagles won against Negri Sembilan in the AFC Cup by coming from 1 goal behind & they did it again against the Warriors who have not lost for the last 4 matches.

Basri Halis put the Warriors in front in the first half but CChang Hui the hero earlier with the equaliser did it again as he fired the Eagles back on level term. Before the match end Daniel Hill got the winner.

April 24, 2004 Hougang

At Hougang, all the talk was about Jaguars goalkeeper Naufalruddin Naim. Not about any goalkeeper heroics but the continued disaster he is when between the post.

Until his performance, the Jaguars appear to have the chance to walk away with their first point.

The first goal came when a cross was fired & crazily Naufalruddin Naim decide to come for it when he was never going to get there before Shi Ming who headed into the open net.

The second goal was a joke as Liu Chifeng was under pressure from defenders & falling down when shooting but somehow the goalkeeper allowed the ball to go through his leg into the net.

The third goal was crazy. He & Tan Sio Beng have no communication so they end up conceding a corner but from the corner, the keeper came out & grab nothing leaving an open net for Chang Lu to fire in from a scramble in the area.

His performance outranked last year 'LongKang' Liu Gang & he did not make an appearance in the second half as he was replaced by Lim Min Pin.

The Jaguars got a goal back but until they cleared up the problem at the back the Jaguars looked unlikely to collect anything.