Jorg is still the man, say Sengkang

W.Ng
info@sleague.com

A series of high-profile moves in the transfer market was supposed to lay down a marker for a bold new age at Sengkang Punggol, after years of struggle at the bottom of the S.League.

Ten games into the season though, the Dolphins retain the sadly familiar tinge of underachievement - but chairman Ben Lim has affirmed his faith in coach Jorg Steinebrunner.

Last week’s 1-0 win over Woodlands Wellington was a welcome three points, as it was just their second win of the campaign. The Dolphins also have the worst defensive record in the league with 21 goals conceded, despite the signings of former Singapore captain Aide Iskandar and current international Noh Rahman.

Chairman Lim though has backed the former Woodlands coach Steinebrunner to bring about a change in the Dolphins’ fortunes.

“At the moment there is a technical committee headed by vice-chairman David Rowe, and the trust is still there in the coach,” he said.

“We should give everyone a chance, and we must move forward as a whole unit, as a big family. We must give the coach, the management and the players some more games to see how things work out.

“This is professionalism. As long as Jorg is my coach, we have full confidence in him and will support him all the way. The general atmosphere at the club is that everybody is still working as a team, to build up the confidence.”

The inability of the Sengkang revolution to get kickstarted on the field has wrought discontent among the fanbase, and the Dolphins’ high turnover of coaches last season - they went through three - has put Steinebrunner’s position under question. But Lim dismisses those notions.

“At the present moment, everybody is disappointed; from the management to the players and of course the fans and supporters, nobody wants to be at the bottom,” he said.

“Last year Saswa(dimata Dasuki) took over very early, and we only took action around the 20th game. Then Mirko (Grabovac) came in as caretaker, but left for home, so we had to bring Swandi (Ahmad) in.

“This year is totally different, we cannot compare the two. The club has a target to achieve, that’s one thing, the present situation is another, and the confidence level is another. On paper, we have the players to do well.”

Lim was also adamant that Steinebrunner had the full support of everyone at the club.

“The fans and supporters are asking for the coach’s head, we are aware of these things. But being football, sometimes the different parties don’t care if we’re playing well or not, they just ask why we keep losing.

“Losing 7-1 (to SAFFC) didn’t help, and people started to say ugly things.”

Businessman Lim, who was voted in as a council member at the Football Association of Singapore last month, maintains that an injection of confidence into the playing squad would work wonders, and is looking to Steinebrunner to provide that injection.

“We have been trying to address this issue since as early as the Balestier (Khalsa) game, which we did not win after we missed a penalty. What we know is that the situation is not nice for everybody, but the club is trying to work things out with the coach and the players at post-match meetings, to see how we can win the next game.

“During these post-match meetings, what we can gather, the general feedback, is that the confidence level has dropped. Quite a number of games we keep losing, it has something to do with the mentality,” said Lim.

“In every game I felt that we had good chances to win, but after losing a few matches, the feedback is that the players are hesitant to move forward. If I weree to sum up, the confidence level is not there, and the coach has to address this problem.”

Lim took over the reins of the Dolphins from former chairman Rowe in the middle of 2008 amid some fanfare, with some heralding the renewal of leadership at the club as the dawn of a new era.

The partner in a freight forwarding company did not disappoint, with some moves at the end of the season that caught the attention of many in the local footballing community.

His first major coup in a bid to revive a side that finished in 11th place in each of the last three seasons was the appointment of Steinebrunner, who had led the Rams to League Cup success in the inaugural year of the competition in 2007, snagged a runners-up spot in last year’s RHB Singapore Cup, and guided Woodlands to successive top-five finishes in the league in 2005 and 2006 together with Moroccan Karim Bencherifa.

And while the capture of the German was greeted with some warmth by Sengkang’s fans, the supporters of the Hougang-based outfit seemed to have reserved their enthusiasm for some of the bold moves the club made in the transfer market.

Indeed, that an unfancied club like Sengkang should have the audacity to even bid for such local luminaries as Aide – the imposing centre-back capped 120 times for Singapore – and Noh Rahman, a regular in the national set-up, was a signal that the Dolphins were not content with just making up the numbers. That they eventually managed to pull off their signings injected fresh vigour in the side and renewed belief among their long-suffering fans.

The signing of largely-unknown Canadian duo Murphy Wiredu and Anthony Bahadur was met with some hesitant optimism among the club’s followers, but Abdoulaye Djibril Diallo was no stranger to the S.League; the Guinean playmaker had a stint with Gombak United before moving to the Liga Indonesia, where he was the recipient of the Best Foreign Player award.

But the signing that raised the most eyebrows and brought greatest cheer to the terraces of the Hougang Stadium was undoubtedly that of former Home United marksman Indra Sahdan Daud after a protracted transfer saga.

The 30-year-old wasted no time in proving that he was well worth the wait, with three goals in his first two matches for the club to hand his new employers four points from their opening three fixtures, Sengkang’s best start to a season for as long as anyone could remember.

The third of those matches saw Indra lead his side to a stirring comeback from two goals down to snatch a point, and many saw this as an indication of the new-found fighting spirit and work ethic of Sengkang Punggol.

But all that changed in just one game as Sengkang saw both first-choice custodian Joey Sim and his replacement Amos Boon, brought back into the club after a year-long spell with Geylang United, dismissed in a 2-0 loss to Tampines Rovers.

The match proved pivotal for the Dolphins, for whom untested Prime League keeper Fahmy Rahman took his place between the sticks for the ensuing two matches, as a succession of poor results lurched into an alarming slump, with a 7-1 mauling at the hands of defending champions SAFFC and a 3-0 defeat by Home United sounding the alarm bells.

Their current position near the foot of the table arguably does little justice to the enterprising style of football Sengkang has displayed this season, as evidenced by the volume of support the Dolphins have received from coaches of rival teams this season.

After being limited to a slim 1-0 win in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei DPMM coach Vjeran Simunic proclaimed Sengkang “the toughest team we played at home this season”, while SAFFC coach Richard Bok feels that the Dolphins “have been a bit unlucky to lose or draw in some of their matches.”

“With the quality they have got, I see them getting away from the bottom two or three eventually. A lot of it is about keeping themselves in a positive frame of mind," he added.

Steinebrunner himself remains undaunted by the growing voice of factions within the Sengkang fanbase calling for his sacking.

“If I was worried, I wouldn’t be in this job,” said the German with characteristic candour.

“In football, wherever you are, you cannot be worried about your job. I have confidence in my own ability, and I have shown this in the past four years, winning the League Cup, bringing Woodlands to the Singapore Cup final and finishing in the top six a few times.

“In previous years the Sengkang teams didn’t always set out to win, sometimes they just wanted to do damage control, but that is different this year, and the players and I are proud of that.”

Echoing his chairman’s sentiments, Steinebrunner opined that a dip in confidence at the club has been the main reason for Sengkang’s poor form of late.

“Some say these are excuses, but we don’t seem to have the luck at the moment,” said Steinebrunner ahead of a training session at the Hougang Stadium.

“Confidence is very important, and that is something we’re trying to address. We are disappointed with the results, but the players are putting in the shift, so what more can you ask?”

Steinebrunner admitted that the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Tampines game proved to be the turning point of his side’s season so far.

“We had two keepers sent off in that game. After that, Fahmy came in, and no disrespect to him, but you have see the level you’re playing at.

“Without Joey and Amos, we had less confidence, but you have to go out there and try to do well.

“Against the Super Reds, we played well, but couldn’t get the result. The DPMM game, some said it was our best performance of the year, and the Brunei coach said we were the best team they played at home.

“Against Balestier, there was the missed penalty, and Indra’s free-kick came back off the bar, so we had our chances, but we were unlucky and couldn’t get the win.

“For the SAFFC game, until the 30th minute we were doing well, then we pulled one back to 2-1, then we could have levelled when Anthony had a good shot but Shahril (Jantan) pulled across to save it.

“And then they scored very quickly, 3-1, 4-1, and I think after the fourth goal the boys’ heads went down a little.

”And against Home United, we did very well against them in the first half.

“Hopefully we can get the luck back, but you create your own luck, you know? Every match that we don’t get the result, the confidence drops.”

The former defensive midfielder for Balestier revealed that he has scheduled a series of activities for his side in an effort to restore some confidence among the ranks, and gave a surprising assessment of Sengkang’s performances this season despite having seen his club torn apart at the seams in the second half on more than one occasion.

“I thought we’ve been better in the second half! If you look at the Geylang game, we were 2-0 down and came back to get a point in the second half.”

Steinebrunner will undeniably be hoping that the measures he has taken to introduce some confidence into his side will be enough to spark an upturn in the fortunes of Sengkang Punggol Football Club – whether they will be enough to placate the growing legion of fans baying for his blood is a different issue altogether.