Asia

By Eddie dos Passos/Singapore Hockey Federation

Chenab Hockey Club tore apart rivals Ceylon Sports Club to a 6-0 thrashing to stay in second place of the men?s Premiership standings in an entertaining encounter at the Delta Sports Complex yesterday.

Taking a 4-0 lead into the break, Chenab were hardly troubled by a CSC side reeling from losing two early goals and marched their way into the score-sheet with goals coming from Mirnawan Nawawi (2nd and 61st minutes), Zilkarnain Azmi (21st and 43rd), Maninderjit Singh (12th) and Herwan Muhi (23rd).

CSC skipper and left back Sharudin Jumain blamed their defeat to ?miscommunication? between the defenders allowing their opponents to run riot in their 25-yard area, with Chenab constantly breaking up CSC?s defense with some neat one-two passes and dominating their attack with support from their halves.

?There was just no communication between the players and our forwards today had no finishing,? said Jumain.

Also with almost 70 per cent of the squad teenagers and currently undergoing school exams, Jumain, who himself is 16, felt they were under a lot of pressure from the first whistle.

?No one has been training for the past couple of weeks and after the break, down 4-0, we lost all motivation,? he said.

Chenab had their strategy marked out from the onset, with coach Paramjit Singh emphasizing an all out attack.

?We told them to go in and have a good start and it worked in our favor, especially as the forwards were well supported by the halves,? said Singh, who is now eyeing an injury free squad leading up to the play-offs.

In a later match, defending league champions Singapore Recreation Club chalked up a 5-1 victory over Police Sports Association.

Taking a commanding 3-0 lead into the break, SRC?s dominance was apparent as they constantly laid siege on the Police goal.

But the real story came from the Police end as their only goal came ironically from their goalkeeper Farham Rashid who had to convert to centre forward after coming back from a fractured right ankle injury that had laid him off for more than six weeks.

Coming off the bench five minutes from time, Rashid scored a remarkable consolation goal in more ways than one, and it was enough to send the Police bench into joy even though the defeat keeps them bottom of the standings.

?I only took the cast off last week and was swimming to get fit. I feel that was a lucky goal as I did not expect to score a goal with two minutes remaining,? said Rashid.

SRC captain helped himself to a hat-trick, scoring in the 22nd, 30th and 61st minutes while goals from Dexter Kang (19th minute) and Ishak Ismail (58th) kept SRC top of the Premiership.

Hat-trick hero Tan felt they could have played better but for the two week lay off which had affected all the teams.

?We lost a bit of our tempo and sharpness and at a certain stage we were unable to string a couple of passes together,? Tan said.

Meanwhile, lowly Jansenites notched up the biggest upset of the day when they sent Singapore Cricket Club crashing to a narrow 1-0 defeat.

Jansenites Guan Jiang latched onto the winner in the 41st minute, the goal enough to keep them in the chase for fourth place. Despite being in fifth, they are leveled on six points with fourth place CSC, who hold a better goal difference.


Full match results:

1. Chenab Hockey Club 6 (4-0 h/t) Ceylon Sports Club 0

2. Singapore Recreation Club 5 (3-0 h/t) Police Sports Association 1

3. Jansenites 1 (0-0 h/t) Singapore Cricket Club 0

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