Roving Ayes
The Prince Goes Twice
The Birds kept the fire going with a 4-2 home win against a combative FC Jurong Rovers side, who drew over eighty-two thousand for the derby clash after three straight wins in the league - the last a 6-0 taming of newbies are newbies. Their Ukrainian boss Olexiy Gubiy vowed to improve on the 3-5 loss to Grilled earlier in the season, and on that part he would have Peruvian defender Fang Kunlong - signed right after that defeat - to contend against the Birds in their own mirror 2-5-3 formation.
Jordan Bondin was the Rovers' captain today with Eugen Wallau having been dropped from the first team for some time, as with out-of-favour Finnish winger Matias Ahtiala. Swiss star Leandro Seiler thus took the keft side for them, with countryman Hervé Condamine joining Al-Mukhaithi and Gatt in a beefed-up offense. For Grilled, it would be
Hisham Zubari holding court in midfield, and
Hwang Teck Fu leading the line with
Chad Thach and
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko waiting for their chance on the bench.
Rovers had been ruthless with this setup against newbies last weekend, and their swashbuckling approach found favour under today's cloudy skies too. Breel Gatt was a real handful in attack, and his 16th minute combination with Arthur Burns had the visitors win a free-kick near the right touchline. Bondin struck an inch-perfect crossfield ball to Seiler, and the reverse pass had Fang Kunlong blow by the defence to hit it past
Radomil Marcol.
The FC Jurong Rovers supporters would not have long to cheer, as it happened, not with Grilled Birds equalizing within the next minute.
Lim An Keng plowed deep into the opposition half after Hwang's kick-off, with the Rovers team apparently waiting for him to pull some feint and reposition. There was no such thing as he made straight for the penalty area, only slipping it sideways to
Chia Kwang Tse after running into actual resistance; Chia went for Plan A as well, drilling it into Petar Panović's far corner after a single touch.
The game slowed for a little, before springing back into life with
Hwang Teck Fu's go-ahead goal off
Wu Ping De's early cross, right before half an hour. Romanian central midfielder Cătălin Papuc would be hauled up for a late tackle on Zubari some seconds ago, but it should have been Rovers to tie it back up, from how fiercely they assaulted the Birds goalmouth in the next minutes. Marcol barely warded Arthur Burns' effort off in the 33rd minute, and was lucky that Anatolio da Parafita fired straight at him after winning the ball back.
It was Grilled's turn to receive a yellow card, this due to
Genki Nagano bringing Khalfan Al-Mukhaithi down, after the UAE forward had sidestepped him following a neat takedown of a waist-high pass. Italian referee Benito Caddi deliberated at length as to whether Genki was the last man before making his decision, and the Birds skipper would have
Johann Schwietzer to thank for staying back on this occasion - or else it could have been a red.
As with the first half, FC Jurong Rovers were the more eager side on the restart, but this would not last very long with Grilled Birds quickly stabilizing in midfield.
Mohd Marzuki Khairul had found Fang a tough nut to crack, and finally got the better of the defender in the 55th minute by anticipating the release timing of
Ananda Hettiarachchi's through pass the more accurately. He still didn't have too much time to pick his shot, unfortunately, and dipped it some distance over the crossbar with Cătălin Papuc approaching at pace.
Grilled could afford to be a bit less impatient, still being ahead, but their head coach would attempt to inject some urgency with the introduction of
Jerome Crawford for
Johann Schwietzer in the 70th minute. Crawford would take just two minutes to put his name in the hat for an assist, in putting a great corner kick in after Hwang had forced the issue. There was nobody even close to
Lim An Keng as he floated to meet it... only to power his header hard off the turf, and inches wide.
Disaster then struck for the Birds as the Rovers sprang a trap in the 77th minute, hustling
Chia Kwang Tse into losing the ball just outside his own box. Anatolio da Parafita had the first bite at the cherry as he raced alongside
Genki Nagano to crash a tremendous strike back off the crossbar, and this time Breel Gatt was in the right spot, to sidefoot the leveller straight into the Grilled net.
This had
Dan Alstani up and yelling from the dugout, but by the looks of it, the odds were against Grilled managing to take the lead back in the thirteen minutes remaining. The first few of those were indeed unproductive, but the Birds did have an ace in the hole, in the form of
Ananda Hettiarachchi. The 28 year-old Sri Lankan playmaker had not particularly caught the eye up till now, but his shoulder drop to fool Stefan Brogaard was a thing of beauty. With 82 minutes on the clock, Ananda then continued his dribble with Fang fighting to get across, and he made it 3-2 with a flawless shot into Panović's near top corner.
As if to prove that it was no fluke, Ananda immediately added a second for himself on Grilled's very next attack, though
Hwang Teck Fu was admittedly a lot more involved in dispelling the defence for this one. Hwang nearly got another but for the Rovers' goalkeeper being extraordinarily agile, and he seemed slightly disappointed to have to go off for
Chad Thach towards the end, in the same swop that had
Paulino Trindade get some minutes after replacing
Wu Ping De.
