Tampines Rovers vs Woodlands Wellington Report [4-1]

Four-goal Stags drag Woodlands through mud

Basil Yeo
info@sleague.com

A waterlogged pitch set the stage for a fiery encounter between Tampines Rovers and Woodlands Wellington on Monday evening, with the Stags overrunning their visitors in the second half to emerge 4-1 victors.

An amazing 40-metre goal from Shukor Zailan was the highlight of the evening as the young midfielder joined Benoit Croissant, Seiji Kaneko and Qiu Li on the scoresheet for the Stags, while Daniel Hammond managed a consolation for his side.

Tampines were missing the suspended duo of Shariff Abdul Samat and Noh Alam Shah, which allowed both Shukor and Aliff Shafaein places in the starting eleven.

Meanwhile the Rams welcomed Anaz Hadee back from a ban, but Precious Emuejeraye sat on the bench due to injury.

The visitors held up well under early pressure from the hosts, with Ahmadulhaq Che Omar making a couple of decisive saves from Aliff and Fahrudin Mustafic, but they nearly conceded when Hammond’s disastrous clearance attempt gifted the Stags captain a clear header he should have done better with.

The Rams eventually caved in after 40 minutes, when Croissant headed in a free kick from Sutee Suksomkit, after Syaiful Iskandar had been awarded a controversial yellow card for felling Ridhuan Muhammad.

The Frenchman’s defensive partner, Seiji Kaneko, took the Stags 2-0 ahead three minutes after the half-time break, lifting up his leg to direct Akihiro Nakamura’s corner into the net.

But Woodlands fought back just five minutes later when Hassan Sunny’s save off Zakaria Yousif’s shot bounced off the post and was flicked in by Hammond.

Just as the Rams looked good for a revival, Qiu Li was quick to restore his side’s two-goal advantage from a tap-in, after Sutee surged down the left flank and beat Anaz to send in a deadly cross for the China-born Singapore international.

It was smooth sailing for the Tampines team thereafter, as they started to stamp their authority on the proceedings as Qiu tapped down a long pass from Shukor to Aliff, but the 27-year-old’s shot was parried by Ahmadulhaq.

The ‘Little Master’ was at work again, when Mustafic spotted him unmarked on the left flank and played a long pass over the midfield, but the former’s cross in for Qiu was cleared away in a desperate lunge by Luis Eduardo Hicks.

Sutee and Nakamura both had shots saved and going millimetres past the post, but a night of goals galore for the Stags was capped off by an outrageous 40-metre punt by Shukor, who caught the goalkeeper off-guard with his lucky strike.

Nenad Bacina threw on Jalal, Syamsul Bahri and Hasrin Jailani in a bid to rescue some pride for the Rams, but the hosts’ own substitute trio of Fathi Yunus, Edward Tan and Satria Mad helped to shore up the Tampines defence to keep the score at 4-1 till full-time.

“Congratulations to Tampines, they are a better team than us,” said Bacina after the game.

“They are the best team we have played so far and I think they are going to win the championship.

“We couldn’t stop them, but I felt that the first goal changed everything,” said the Croatian.

“We were doing well before that and I disagree with the yellow card given to Syaiful as that was not a foul, but I look forward to the next game against Brunei’s DPMM.”

Tampines head coach Vorawan Chitavanich was pleased with the victory, but felt his side could have had a clean sheet to sweeten the night further.

“I just wanted three points and we are happy,” he said.

“We could have played better if the field was not wet and slippery.

“I felt we were overconfident when we were 2-0 up, and then we let in the goal,” lamented the Thai coach.

“I will have some talking to do with my players as they need to know that they cannot be too overconfident even if they are 2-0 or 3-0 up, and then forget the gameplan.

“I don’t think that changed the game,” said Vorawan, when asked of his thoughts regarding Bacina’s comments of the circumstances which led to the first goal.

“They played a compact game which made it difficult for us until the third goal, which made it easier for us to control the game and score our fourth goal.”

With the win, the Stags have closed the gap between third and fourth place to just three points below third-placed DPMM, and will be hoping for some favours come Thursday when the Bruneian club travel to Woodlands.