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Woodlands Wellington’s rotten run of results continued against Gombak United as the northern club fell 0-1 at Jalan Besar Stadium on Friday night.
A general lack of spark from both sides blighted the contest as they struggled to find their footing.
The sluggishness of the match was evident in the complete lack of credible attacks by both sides up until well into the second half, and even then chances were few and mostly insignificant.
The winless Rams succumbed to their eighth defeat from the first ten matches of the 2011 Great Eastern-YEO’S S.League, and this time they managed the feat despite having the advantage of an additional player for most parts of the second half.
Ruhaizad Ismail picked up a straight red card for a dangerous challenge on Graham Tatters just twelve minutes after the restart.
But the sending-off galvanised the Bulls instead, even though they had been below par for the entire match, and with Woodlands pushing higher up in hopes of snatching their first victory of the season, the game became more open.
It took just six minutes from Ruhaizad’s ejection for Gombak to break the deadlock. Park Kang Jin cleverly picked out fellow Korean Chang Jo Yoon, who had stayed onside to sneak in behind the Woodlands backline before racing into the penalty box and slotting past Ang Bang Heng.
Being a goal down and having an extra player made no difference for the Rams as they remained short on ideas going forward. The late introduction of Navin Nigel Vanu might have given them more shots on goal, but did little else to excite the team into even trying to clinch a draw.
Gombak even came close to adding salt into the Woodlands wound when substitute Kwon Jin Sung calmly rounded Ang and a sea of Woodlands defenders to fire into an empty net, only to have his shot deflected off the line by the heels of the fortuitously-placed Adrian Butters.
The Rams’ miserable night was compounded all the same late in injury time, when substitute Darrel Tan received his marching orders for openly showing his dissent to the assistant referee.
A general lack of direction in play and the tendency to commit even the simplest of mistakes, especially by custodian Ang, sealed the struggling side’s fate for the night.
“The game sucked,” was R. Balasubramaniam’s straightforward verdict in the post-match interview.
“Losing by one goal again. That’s the third time this season we lost 0-1. I think it was a pretty even game, and at half-time I told my players whoever makes the mistakes loses the game.”
“And I was right. We made that one sloppy mistake and it cost us the goal.”
But Balasubramaniam was also quick to point out that his team’s poor showing was also in part due to a lack of adequate preparation for the match given the unavailability of a training pitch.
Woodlands Stadium, where the Rams are based, is one of nine venues gazetted for use for party rallies in the ongoing General Election campaign.
“The past two to three days, we didnt have a pitch to play on, we were just running and running and running. So that’s the setback we were having,” explained the Woodlands coach.
His Gombak counterpart was expectedly in better mood, despite the initial poor showing by his team.
“Magnificient effort, of course there’s nothing else to talk about, they were superb,” said Darren Stewart in a typical show of solidarity to his players.
Stewart also refused to criticise outright the decision by referee Sukhbir Singh to dismiss Ruhaizad.
“It was more of a clumsy tackle, but he probably deserves (the sending off),” he commented.
“I just think there were a couple more before that that deserved it as well.”
The Bulls, who had found themselves in a rut after their defeat to Singapore Armed Forces in late March, edged into fifth in the standings after the win, their third in succession.
The are now level on points with fourth-placed Etoile, who have played a game fewer.
The slow rise of his team clearly impressed Stewart, who was full of praise of his players for their showing so far.
“We did well in the first round. I have to honestly salute the boys for their performances,” said the Australian.
“If someone had told all of us we would have twenty points after 11 games, I would have taken that. But we have to keep building on it and not stop here.”
Woodlands remained off the foot of the table only by virtue of a better goal difference than Tanjong Pagar United, who have also played a game more.
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