WhiteSharks in Red
Penny's Points
Second-placed WhiteShark hoped to keep their championship hopes mathematically alive by beating Grilled on their away visit, but not even their lucky all-red away strip could keep them from their fate.
Strangely enough, there wasn't a full house at Gamma Stadium, perhaps because the fans felt the destination of the league trophy to be a foregone conclusion.
Ma Dai-Lin and
Tim Hobson might subconsciously have thought so too, as they both missed with the goal at their mercy early on in the half.
A draw would have been good enough for the Birds, and therefore it was up to WhiteShark to take the risks, which they reluctantly did. This led however to
Tom Pence floating in to make it 1-0 to Grilled thanks to Dai-Lin's 72nd minute cross, and Grilled slammed the door shut four minutes later as the deadly
Chen Chiew-Yen raised the lead to two.
WhiteShark didn't appear too affected, perhaps as overhauling the Birds at this stage wasn't really a realistic ambition, and they had the better of the remaining minutes, especially after
Ma Dai-Lin sprained an ankle and went out for
Gao Seng-kar.
The visitors took advantage of that break to assemble a pointed assault, and Mao Hong-cheng created a goal for himself by dashing past a winded Dewilde. Seng-kar then nearly restored the two-goal lead, only for Rickard Sjöblom to pull out a world-class save, and Grilled would finish up without
Daniel Tellskär as the Swede was cut down by Liu Mu-Ziq.
