Hazard Navigated
Chow Picks Up
Grilled partly scrubbed the stain of their ego-bruising 1-7 loss with a three-nil friendly win over Jamaican Division Two side and national ladder leaders Hazard United, which saw soaring temperatures of near 35 degrees. The visitors were acclimatized, though, and lined up in a narrow 3-5-2 with the suitably-named Alexis Hazard keeping it together from the back.
The Birds' greatest enemy turned out to be the crossbar, as they were not shy about going at it from distance. Both
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim and
Tian Yonghang had spectacular efforts glance off the woodwork, with young Swedish goalie Gustav Andreasson nowhere close on either try.
While they were not well-oiled by any means, Hazard's youthful reserves lacked the know-how to disrupt play effectively. This meant that the Birds retained a good chunk of possession, but simply didn't have a finisher on hand as acting forward
Shiya Shaahee kept drifting wide.
Liang Liyong and
Pompeo Bellamoli both sent in their fair share of crosses, but none were properly picked up on.
The second half saw
Colby Awyong on in place of
Hilal Bakhtiar, and a much brighter beginning for Grilled. Bellamoli finally found his deft touch and dribbled in behind Hazard, which left
Chow Ying Lee with acres of space to advance in on and poach it.
Shaahee was finally coming into his own, but to his obvious annoyance, the transfer-listed winger was taken off for
Leong Wan Kang, to whom he gave only the most cursory of pats, in the 65th minute. It might have been no coincidence that Grilled perked up instantly with a player who knows his role, and Leong's maniac scampering soon opened it up for Chow to stick a second between Andreasson's legs.
This was followed within two minutes by
Walter Ross drilling in a splendid grounder from nearly no angle quite unexpectedly, and the Birds were finally satisfied as they began to wind it down. Ross himself went off for
Sandy Fu in the 80th minute, after which Mohd Safri hit another imaginative ball, but still enjoyed no luck.
Hazard had been more of less placid up till now, but got some fire in their bellies after first-teamer Lieven Caenen came on for teenaged forward Carlton Runcie, who had a slick enough style but had ultimately found no purchase against the no-nonsense
Rashid bin Ahmad.