Dropping A Ton
Meyer Shines
Stricken goalkeeper
Wong Tian Han was hardly missed today, as his stand-in
Krystian Rykowski barely touched glove to ball in a ten-nil Singapore Cup opening win against amateur side Newton Athletic. French central midfielder
Clément Meyer picked up his maiden Man of the Match award with the Birds alongside scoring, as he looked every inch the responsible do-it-all.
Newton had been unbeaten in fourteen leading up to this, but it turned out a meaningless statistic against the reality of Grilled's hardboiled professionals. Their 61 year-old skipper Xi Shan-Yuan had an extremely admirable physique for his age, but there was no mistaking how hard he found it to keep tabs on lone striker
Leong Wan Kang.
That they stood firm for sixteen minutes was an accomplishment in itself, but their dreams of advancement came crashing down when acting captain
Zhu Changchun eased through on the right, before leaving it for
Chow Ying Lee to slingshot into the top corner.
That was some goal, but more was to come, and in the very next minute Meyer profited as the Newton defenders looked unsure if the game had been restarted, and was followed by Zhu himself delivering for the third a few minutes later. That was effectively it as far as the outcome was concerned, and the Birds went into take-it-easy mode.
This didn't stop defenders
Remco van der Ban and
Gene Filippone adding to the considerable lead before half-time, though, as the opponents wilted more quickly than Grilled slowed down consciously. Leftback Faizal bin Raja Shoib was having it particularly hard against Zhu, who wasn't inclined to go light with the armband around his sleeve.
Filippone would not reappear for the second half as
Colby Awyong made his entrance, and service resumed in the 51st minute when the suddenly very active Chow lofted a tempting ball that
Low Aik Jia couldn't resist executing an overhead kick on; a better goalie than Thian Heng-Chong might have stopped that, but Thian was awed enough to watch it bounce in, not a few feet from him.
Wen Ting-shuo got a little roughed up by Leong, who was almost young enough to be his grandson, but stood his ground to whistles from the sprightly home crowd. It didn't help poor Faizal, however, who hung desperately on to Zhu, but was still unable to prevent him from scuffing it in.
Lee Lee Hao would come through in the 72nd minute for his first in the green, before Remco and Low completed their braces before the eightieth.
