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| FIXTURE HISTORY |
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| Season 48 | W | 0 - 5 | Tournament (Group Phase) | | Season 46 | W | 0 - 3 | Cup |
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Heavens Below
Chow Cracks Two
The Birds maintained their impeccable record against fellow Jurong denizens Heaven Skys, with a third whitewash in as many games. While not a few were concerned about how Grilled would cope with national veterans Chew Meng Qiang and Mohd Rosedy bin Mohd Nor, the Birds played to their own considerable strengths and wiped the hosts handily, 6-0.
With
Wong Tian Han's unexpected arrival having sucked the attention of most Grilled fans, the away section at Arch Angel was buzzing with the hope that Wong would turn up, but they would be disappointed by him not being sighted at all.
Hovaness Noubaryan carried on in goal, with
Wong Ping Shun and
Low Aik Jia in their natural wide positions.
It was expected to be a close if high-scoring affair, with Heaven's stock ascending following their 1-0 upset of Isle of Flames. Their 2-0 loss to Club Dinosauria tempered expectations somewhat, but the consensus then was that they were still slightly unfortunate not to make more of their possession advantage.
They made the mistake of getting caught up in Grilled's rhythm, though, and few have recovered without taking damage from that. There were some early sparks when Flurin Benbassat got booked for chopping
Tian Yonghang down, and a clearly displeased Tian received the same some minutes later for what appeared to be direct retaliation.
Chow Ying Lee shifted the focus back to football not a moment too soon, as he arrived on the dot to glance in from
Wong Ping Shun's cross. Chow is on something of a renaissance, having earned the Man-of-the-Match award for Sunday's performance against Young Tigers despite not scoring, which he would more than make up for today.
Hilal Bakhtiar was on hand to scoop the second goal in after 31 minutes, the end product of a dizzying series of passes inside the penalty area. Heaven keeper Mircea Moldoveanu was extremely unhappy with his defence for allowing that, but their more pressing problem was not being able to hold the ball up at the top for any appreciable period of time.
The hosts would not be able to get anywhere without making
Ling Fuquan sweat, but with their forwards having chosen the same day to go off the boil, it was only to be expected that the Birds' unhindered attack would reign. Tian combined well with Low on the left side in the 58th minute, and plastered the ball into the top corner after exchanging a one-two.
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim and Wong were next to the party, as they made it four and five by the 64th minute, destroying whatever faint hopes the Heaven faction had of recouping a draw. Surya Verma had put in a fairly decent shift under the circumstances, but spoilt it when he failed to track Wong then.
Chow placed the sixth and final goal past Moldoveanu, to which Heaven had no reply other than for Aizal bin Ashaari to upend the free-flowing striker on his next run.
