Gun Bound
Kearney Scramble
Grilled Birds twice had to come from behind as they never really recovered from a complacent start which saw a fired-up YoungGuns_United rack up two goals. YoungGuns began with a standard 4-4-2 which they utilised to great effect, as their veteran star winger, ex-National teamer Zhan King-Wah gave
Ma Dai-Lin no end of grief.
Lan Tuan-Mu drifted across to strengthen that weak side, but that exposed the middle allowing Pan Gan-Goo to burst straight through and wrongfoot
Hang Bao-Tam. Grilled weren't woken by that, the lackluster attitude characterised by the generally unflappable Hjortlind refusing to chase an errant ball. YoungGuns_United proceeded to bring it up to Swedish striker Peter Lied with a few crisp passes, and he brought Flame Tree Park to its feet with a cool finish.
Wilson Kearney took it on himself to let Grilled back in the game at that moment, and he first poached one by breaking YoungGun's offside trap marginally before surprising Ibrahim Yusuf by swerving a shot from distance between the posts. Grilled trooped off happy enough that they weren't behind by more.
The expected half-time admonishments did work somewhat, and Grilled defended as a unit to dampen YoungGun's attacking ardour.
Nui Pakpao did what he had to do as he made central midfielder Ma Chung-Sheng go to ground to break up a raid. Ma pulled a muscle in the process, and YoungGuns decided to pull him off and throw Ya Sai-Yin into the fray. Ma's revenge came quickly as his replacement got a corner from the free kick, allowing Pan Gan-Goo to take full advantage of Tang Sie-Man's height - the lanky wingback was a head above everyone as he nodded YoungGuns back into the lead. Grilled could have done little about that, but they were determined to salvage something from the game as they pressed for an equaliser. It came in the 82nd minute as
Lan Tuan-Mu saw his chance and caught his marker off guard, pushing well into the opponents' penalty area before walloping the ball past Yusuf. Lan could have been an unlikely hero if he could have made more of
Zhan Ju-Hau's overlapping ball wide on the left straight after that, but his hasty attempt trickled wide of the post. Frankly though, as most watchers in Flame Tree Park would attest, Grilled deserved little more than a draw this time.
