Dolphins Dunked
MacKinnon Debut
Scotsman
John MacKinnon featured in his No. 12 shirt on the right wing as Grilled went though their obligatory first round steamrolling of amateur opposition without really raising their game. In fact, the West Dolphins even had a couple of Grilled supporters in their ranks, although that was hardly apparant the way they defending with ferocity in the first twenty-odd minutes.
The inevitable happened when the ball ping-ponged around in their box after Spirig had spearheaded an attack from the right. After Dolphins' goalkeeper Ke Beng-Fai fumbled an interception, normally reserved central defender
Han Lik-Tsun could not help but lazily sweep it into a gaping net.
A factory supervisor in real life, Ke couldn't be faulted for letting a Sid special through him, seeing as goalies of international calibre have done the same before. Wrongfooted by Han Kok's approach from the other direction, Ke had no chance at all anyway.
Subri was next to bang in an attempt but got the crossbar instead, and the hosts then enjoyed the high point of their first half when Ke instinctively parried a stiff strike from
Hidde van Liere to the feet of a waiting defender.
Grilled appeared to be charitable after they lowered the tempo almost to walking pace after going four goals up, as
Nawaz Talib and
Dani Spirig got through at the beginning of the second half. This state of affairs continued until the final moments of the game, when they saw the Dolphins' reduction to ten men as a signal to pad their goal total. Forward Qin Tsung-Cheng was hardly missed to be honest as the ball hardly crossed into Grilled's half of the field.
Debutant
John MacKinnon could have marked his special day with a goal had he just kept his cool, since Ke was already on the ground after barely pushing Spirig's pinpoint lob out. The Scotsman quite unsubtly hacked at the rebound from ten yards, and sent it whirring into a ballboy behind the advertising hoardings.
He also refused Sid's offer to let him take the penalty given after Rotteveel was pushed over in the box, and Sid handily stuck it in to make it five. Subri hammered the sixth in with a minute remaining, before Rotteveel finally got through in injury time.
