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The Courts Young Lions’ wretched Saturday evening luck continued when they were beaten 1-2 by erstwhile bottom-dogs Woodlands Wellington in a rearranged Great Eastern-YEO’S S.League match at Jalan Besar Stadium.
After foul weather had twice thwarted this fixture in April, the third iteration looked good for them early on when Fazli Ayob gave them the lead inside 17 minutes, but everything went wrong after that, including an equaliser by Goh Swee Swee on 33 minutes for the Rams and an early second-half sending-off for defensive lynchpin Shakir Hamzah.
Even though the red card given to Shakir looked quite harsh and the resulting penalty taken by Ali Imran Lomri was easily claimed by Izwan Mahbud, the home team never recovered from the setback.
Indeed Woodlands gained confidence, even after missing the penalty, before going on to record their maiden win in 2011, courtesy of a well-taken header by Brazilian substitute Leonardo Alexio da Costa five minutes from time.
Both teams were shorthanded going into this match, with the Young Lions missing Shahfiq Ghani, Faritz Abdul Hameed and Raihan Abdul Rahman among others, and the Rams without defender Adrian Butters, ruled out by the medicos for six weeks, and Shahri Musa, for at least a fortnight.
Meanwhile goalkeeper Ang Bang Heng had suffered a knock in a previous game and Amos Boon, still recovering from ankle ligament damage, was forced to play when handicapped by his injury.
It certainly seemed to affect the Woodlands backline for a while, and a lack of teamwork between Boon, Graham Tatters and Ali Imran contributed to the opening goal.
But despite looking like going on with the job initially, the Young Lions’ confidence began to wane once the Rams had equalised, and when they were reduced to ten men with 40 minutes to play, it made life very hard for Robin Chitrakar’s boys.
“I thought we controlled the first half,” he said after the match.
“We performed well until we went a man down, and that send-off changed the game completely.
“We need results to give the players more confidence, but I hope the players learned something from this game, as it was down to inexperience that the game got away from us in the end.
“We are also struggling for numbers, as out of 30 players I should have available I have only 18 to call on, and we had to name two goalkeepers on the bench as we were so short of players.
“At least we can do better in the second round,” the coach observed, noting that after this catch-up game the first eleven games have now been completed for his side, although they are yet to meet Etoile and SAFFC in deferred games and have drawn with Geylang United in their first second-round outing just five days before this one.
Sadly for the sponsors and the fans, none of their enterprisingly early Saturday evening matches have yielded a point just yet.
For Woodlands, it was a case of finally making the breakthrough for a win after going close more than once.
Against Geylang at home at the start of April, they thought they might have snatched a 2-1 win after da Costa had headed them in front near the end, but the Eagles then spoiled that with a late equaliser.
This time it was the tall Brazilian’s turn once more to silence the knockers with a crisp, headed finish to a cross from the right byline by Syed Karim, a man fast gaining experience at Woodlands after earlier spells with Gombak United and SAFFC.
The much-maligned striker, often called by the contraction ‘Leo’, proved a worthy winner this time around, terrorising the Young Lions in their own den once he was on for Navin Nigel Vanu on 72 minutes.
There were still some scary moments before the players and their coach R. Balasubramaniam could celebrate the win, with the 37-year-old enjoying a good soaking by his players out on the field.
“Leonardo caused them a few problems when he went on,” said the affable man.
“He was a real Dennis the Menace!
“I would like to dedicate this win to the Woodlands chairman and to the fans,” he then said, in a nod to the proverbial men upstairs.
“The chairman has put no pressure on us at all, he’s been patient and we knew the wins would come eventually. We now need to build on this with another good performance against Tanjong Pagar on Tuesday (at Woodlands Stadium).”
The Rams backline was strong even without the injured Butters, as Tatters, Munier Raychouni et al took care of a lively Young Lions outfit.
Despite seeming to lose out on the wings, particularly on the left side of the field, the quartet clung on well once the action moved towards the centre, and apart from the one goal they performed competently.
In what proved a very entertaining game, the greater experience and the extra man probably made the difference for Woodlands.
“I could not see the incident too well,” said the Rams coach, “but it definitely helped us when Shakir was sent off.”
All said, though, Woodlands were up against a Young Lions side that had a few strong performers as well.
Nazrul Ahmad Nazari and, to a lesser extent, Eugene Luo were very effective on the flanks, and captain Hariss Harun in midfield made a big contribution.
The opening goal by Fazli came after good early lead-up work from Nazrul and then a through ball from Syafiq Zainal that Fazli finished with precision.
But Rams attacking midfielder Goh had one of his strongest games in a while, emphasising that with a fine equaliser on 33 minutes.
He began the move by finding Sazali Salleh on the right, who switched play to the left by picking out Jalal, and it was from Jalal’s cross that the Woodlands No.9 gleefully headed past Izwan to level the scores.
Nazrul might have restored the Young Lions’ lead on the stroke of half-time, but his low effort from 20 yards flashed just wide.
Woodlands forced a number of corners and free kicks in the second half and once the key attacking substitution had taken place, things began to happen.
The monster-like da Costa’s physical presence seemed to intimidate the Young Lions defenders, and while an Irwan Shah lob did come back off the crossbar with Amos Boon looking stranded, there were few other chances for the home fans to get excited about.
Jalal almost made it 2-1 on 82 minutes after picking up a long throw from Sahairi Ramri, but he fired just wide of the right post from close range.
But the Woodlands fans only had to wait another three minutes for the winner.
A ball across the face of goal from the left was not dealt with adequately by the team in red and black, and was instead picked up by Karim out wide on the right.
His pinpoint cross from the byline was laid on a platter for da Costa to head in his second of the season, this time a winning goal to savour as his team hung on well to see out the game.
Young Lions coach Chitrakar bewailed his continuing lack of numbers at training and the way things have been going against his team in games recently.
“We’re only a part-time team, in many ways,” he said.
“A lot of the players cannot get to training in time, and some cannot come at all. We really need to have our full squad back to perform at our best.
“With so many international matches to play soon, I do hope we can get more players before too long. We can’t even call on the Under-18s this season as they are playing in AFF tournaments.”
And so another Young Lions game ends in defeat, a result that allowed Woodlands to move to within a point of them and left Tanjong Pagar firmly at the foot of the ladder with only three points to the Rams’ five.
All that could change in another three days, of course, but things are beginning to get interesting for the team from up north after they have now broken past a key mental barrier.
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