Kalki Grins Wide
Outdoing Oneself
Grilled put some distance between themselves and Mia San Toa Payoh in the goal different department, with a ten-nil home whipping of an uninterested Joker 9B. The visitors had turned to fielding their reserves after a wholesale clearout, but
Kalki Parvathaneni wasn't about to check his privilege as he recorded the first four-goal haul of his career.
With Joker 9B's board having dispensed of essentially their entire first team, including former Kazakh youth custodian Balabi Zheksenuly, there was little doubt about Grilled's three points at home. Of course, given that Kalki had notched a first-half hat-trick against Zheksenuly and company en route to a 7-0 away win earlier in the season, French backup goalie Quentin Lamour could hardly be faulted for what would happen.
It was a brave opening by the Jokers, actually, seeing as they had nothing to lose. Homegrown striker Subri Rafi nearly got in behind in the first minute, but their perhaps unwarranted looseness saw
Vikram Mudaliar with acres of empty space before him, in the tenth minute. Hari Munnangi saw the danger and got a headstart, but Mudaliar's far superior speed left Munnagi with an ineffective bump from the back, as the Grilled Number Nine went on to open.
Joker 9B had barely taken it in, when
Cyril Künzler had it in the back of their net again - a rare header, after
Moey Xin Seng had swapped flanks unobtrusively. It was Moy's first league start in four rounds, and he did his job well, if maybe going slightly overboard in goading the teenaged Ossie Carmona into a booking. The Jokers would then craft their best go at a consolation; unfortunately for them,
Massoud Dob had left a big hand out for Minhat Mohd Hisyamuddin's drive.
A
Kalki Parvathaneni double followed as the Grilled forward struck first from a deliberate run, and then a close-in volley after
Chan Ze Han had done most of the work.
Chu Xin Lee followed that up with a deflected effort, before Mudaliar and Künzler repeated for 7-0, all this by the 37th minute.
It was all going very well indeed, with Robbie Football Club holding Mia San Toa Payoh at half-time, and Grilled's top priority had to be avoiding needless injuries and cards. Kalki wasn't dialing it down, though, and while Lim Ping Tong had put in his fair share of good blocks on him, there was no preventing Kalki's hat-trick goal - a header onto the woodwork, kneed in on the second attempt.
Kalki got a fourth - for the first time ever - in the 58th minute, which was also one of his untidier goals. Lamour had in fact gotten fingers to the half-botched strike, but not quite enough. A couple of minutes later,
Yuta Nakakita was off, after having the wind knocked out of him by a meaty hit from midfielder Lim Shi Cheng. Yuta indicated that he was fine to continue after recovering, but
Hovaness Noubaryan understandably didn't want to take chances, and sent
Gilbert Webb on.
Bilal Mohammad Harun got in on the act with an inspired one-two several minutes later, but slipped at the last. It was left to Mudaliar to complete his own hat-trick in injury time, with Bilal nearly setting
Bernie Egan up for an eleventh at the death.
