Fruits of Labour
Fortitude Wins Out
Things were heading towards a honourable hard-fought draw at Durian_picker's Saujana Court, when Grilled threw everything they had at the home side in the last five minutes. Inexplicably, they were rewarded with a couple of very late goals from their strikers, which kept Subri and Rotteveel atop the top scorers' league and moved Grilled two points clear of third place.
The Durians entered this home game on the back of twelve straight victories, though they looked decidedly shaky against Herron's challenge in their latest league game, dependant upon mercurial finishing to take a 3-2 victory. Encouraged by Herron's approach to that match, Grilled went for a counterattacking game too against the hosts' packed five man midfield.
There were few clear cut opportunities as Grilled had to battle hard to get a clean look at goal even as Durians struggled to get a solid foothold, but
Quah Han Kok took the one that fell to him very well. As the Durian central defence pairing dallied on who should run out to pick up Rotteveel's run, no-one noticed the equally quick Han Kok circle in behind them. Rotteveel then split the defence with a needle-sharp pass that Quah popped up to score from. That was Quah's first league goal of the new season.
The home side weren't accustomed to being behind, and began coming closer with some well-thought out moves that Grilled only just managed to deal with. Turkish midfielder Serhat Maruf had a shout for a free-kick in a dangerous area when he tumbled over Sid's outstretched foot in the 35th minute, but the referee felt that it was too contrived and flashed the yellow at him instead.
Red-hot striker Tsai Soon-Jung then crafted an equaliser for Durian all by himself, as he exploited Lik-Tsun's weakness against pure unadulterated speed with a slicing diagonal run to the outside. It was all Han could do to prevent Tsai from cutting back in, but he was powerless to stop Tsai from releasing a yummy waist-high cross that his partner Remeli Yahaya sprang at skilfully to get it over Valdir and into the net.
With equilibrium restored, the match returned to its initial cagey state. While fears of a physical game were mostly unfounded, Grilled's Pakistani central defender
Nawaz Talib still got himself caught on the head by an unintentional elbow from Yahaya. Talib bravely stayed on after being initially treated for cuts, but signalled to be taken off after some minutes. This handed German veteran
Fabian Bona his first league run-out of the season.
Durian threw down the gauntlet as their win streak threatened to come to an end, and Maruf severely tested Valdir's reaction time with a surprise volley in the 85th minute that had Grilled's Brazillian ex-international sprawling after it. To the dismay of the home fans, the attempt passed agonizingly close by the far post.
To make matters worse for them, Durian were caught by the classic sucker punch as Valdir's massive goal kick was taken down by the burly MacKinnon, who temporarily played the part of point man. A sleek little sidefooted pass allowed Subri the space to run at the Durian defence, and the Malaysian forward pulled the trigger early to beat Bernhard Voss in goal.
Maruf tried again with a sizzling right-footed strike as Durians went frantically in search of a point, but this time it didn't trouble Valdir who could see that it was due to swerve well wide. They then attempted to break through with a free-kick with most of their players in the Grilled box, but Lik-Tsun headed that out - there was then no-one within range to stop Rotteveel bearing down upon Voss, and the Dutchman displayed nerves of steel to draw the German goalie out and keep his own scoring streak humming along.
