Islanders Sunk
Gennady Repeat
There was no questioning who had taken up the mantle of Grilled's main scorer after Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim's retirement, as new Player of the Season
Gennady Dvorak replicated his four-goal opening from the last campaign. Part-timers East Coast Islanders might have just won their Division Five league, but they were blown out of the water by a strong Birds selection.
Grilled's concession to the hosts would be a second-string defence of
Remco van der Ban and
Hilal Bakhtiar, though
Yuta Nakakita made a near-miraculous recovery to start this new campaign.
Mohammad Ramli Saliman was chosen to start alongside him. As for the Islanders, their evergreen 68 year-old skipper Jiao Yiu-Chung would be their most impressive performer - which said it all really.
The heavy rain at East Coast Emporium probably suited the home team just fine, as they huddled in, but they would hold out for just nine minutes before
Neeraj Muthyala bundled
Low Aik Jia's slippery cross home. Mohd Azley bin Mohd Esahar would get himself all over
Tian Yonghang on the next Birds attack, and
Gennady Dvorak didn't give chances with his penalty take.
Actually, the Islanders could be commended to limiting Grilled to just three goals in the first half, which took quite a bit of quick thinking on their part. Muthyala tried to add on to Dvorak's second, but his sudden rocket-powered shot from all of forty yards would swing agonizingly by the left upright.
The subsiding of the rainstorm, as well as the natural effects of exhaustion, would come into play for Grilled eventually, with the fleet feet of
Rinor Isufi and
Low Aik Jia opening the way for them, making it 5-0 just before the hour mark.
Despite the hosts hardly ever making it out of their own half, the referee had no call to stop the match, and the one-sided battering resumed with
Tian Yonghang following in Mohd Safri's footsteps, making it twenty consecutive scoring seasons with a toepoke past Yang Jer-Yaw. Dvorak completed his hat-trick shortly after, aided by
Mohammad Ramli Saliman's dinky defence-splitting pass.
His job done, Tian would go off together with
Hilal Bakhtiar, for
Leong Wan Kang and
Hoàng Trung Quá to get some gametime. Of course, the Islanders were on the ropes by now, and an unchallenged dash by Low down the left produced a fourth for the irrepressible Dvorak.
Remco van der Ban then added a ninth in the 84th minute, to seal the deal.
