Sound And Fury
Birds Show Mettle
Grilled shook up what had looked like a two-horse race for the S-League title, as they pegged back Rollin' Thunder handily on home ground to come within two points of the high-flyers. Zoltan Árva and
Nawaz Talib's early recovery from their respective injury troubles boosted their side demonstrably, though it was a great team performance that won it for the Birds.
Things didn't start well in the intense derby, as Grilled's backline failed miserably in keeping Rollin's tall Austrian defender Franz Wallner contained. The normally reliable Lik-Tsun was given the run-around by Wallner as Min Fu's corner kick sailed in the air, and a desperate lunge from Sid was not enough to put Wallner off as he claimed his first goal against Grilled.
It threatened to be a disaster for Grilled as Rollin' showed every intention of killing off Grilled's ambitions in double-quick time, but the home side defended stubbornly. Árva even drew a booking from Jurjan de Man when he shimmied superbly on dribbling the ball out of defence, which bought the team some time to regroup.
The equaliser came as Grilled played a series of sharp one-twos through the Rollin' defence, and
Maikel Rotteveel intelligently held off making a shot, instead waiting for Han Kok to float into a better position before releasing the killer pass. Current Singaporean national goalkeeper Deng Wei-Ming got his fingertips to his national colleague's shot, but that was not nearly enough to save it.
Rotteveel then blotted his disciplinary record again as he caught Mark Linlind with a poor tackle. The Dutchman's recent commitment to defending has won him new fans, but it may yet be a liability - that was Rotteveel's fifth yellow of the season, and could yet see him sitting out a crucial match.
Grilled began to gain the upper hand, and took the lead from virtually nothing as Subri saw Deng fractionally out of position after a couple of passes along the length of Rollin's penalty area saw the goalie pulled from one end of his goal to the other. The Malaysian striker swung his foot and aimed a lob perfectly between two Rollin' defenders, and into the top right corner.
Han Lik-Tsun continued the turnaround as he put away his first league goal of the season, cannily evading the challenge of Inoke Parker to place his strike in off the post.
Nawaz Talib might have broken his scoring duck for the season too, but Deng's quality was such that the Pakistani's blazing effort was kept out, despite it moving crazily in the air.
Rollin' attempted to come back in the second half through Chua Min Fu's free-kick skills, and Chan did in fact get a textbook grounder around the outside of the wall towards the bottom corner. Valdir was too agile, though, and managed to scramble it around the post despite being unsighted for much of the ball's flight.
It was game, set and match when Rotteveel raced past a slowing Wallner to supply Subri with a one-on-one chance that he duly slipped under Deng. Linlind came close to giving his side hope when he anticipated a rebound and flung himself at it in the 68th minute, but Valdir bravely got his body in the way. Grilled could then have added more gloss to their win, as Quah raced unopposed into shooting range, but his impressive long-range effort never stopped rising.
