Drama At Woodside
Injury Time Blitz
Grilled Birds would only have had themselves to blame, had they lost to Benfleet Branch in this first-ever league fixture before the clubs; having been blessed with chances aplenty throughout, they failed to make good on nearly all of them, and the hosts looked to have stolen it with a late smash-and-grab. It didn't end there, however, as Grilled found it within themselves to stage a last-gasp rally.
Benfleet were entering this on the back of big victories against West Coast Point Automat and KingofNoobs United, though these two customers being currently seventh and eighth in the table suggested that they had not been especially stiff tests. Still, it was unwise to underplay the home side, given they were a solid attacking unit with no clear vulnerabilities, and a pair of productive strikes in Bran Lume and Gabi Camilar. They had racked up a total of seventeen goals between them already this season, with no suggestion they are slowing down.
For Grilled's part, they would have
Heng Dong Chu return after getting dropped last weekend, and
Moey Xin Seng skippering by his side. One can seldom fault Moey for not putting himself out, as he did with a biting tackle on opposing captain Awki Raymond, after eleven minutes. Referee Sun Zukai was not in the mood for warnings, however, leading to Moey being flashed the only card of the match.
Cyril Künzler would shake off two players before placing a relatively simple finish wide in the 15th minute, and although Heng made the most of Grilled's next attempt, Künzler's miss would set the tone for much of the Birds' day. As it was, Benfleet were back on level terms soon enough though Lume, who slipped inside unattended after Grilled's defence got distracted by Camilar and Sergiu Ţoie's movements, on a free-kick setup.
Künzler could legitmately have recorded a hat-trick by half-time had he put his finishing boots on, but he had nobody but himself to blame after badly messing his opportunities up. For
Bernie Egan's part, the Irishman had carried his sharpness from Friday's tournament game over, but goalkeeper Edward Dare was just one step ahead of him on Moey's 28th minute through pass.
Given it hadn't really been working out with Heng after his goal,
Hovaness Noubaryan would opt for additional midfield presence in
Kalki Parvathaneni for the second half. Benfleet Branch remained obdurate, and Josimar Costa Lobo would soon make adjustments of his own, with the like-for-like substitutions of Ayman Shuhabi in for Catarino Dias Reis, and then homegrown star Wang Yew Da in for Camilar in the 68th minute.
Grilled retained the possession advantage through it all, but they continued to be cursed in front of goal, perhaps best represented by Egan bearing down on Dare together with Künzler on a mesmerizing breakaway down the right, only for him to misplace what was frankly a routine final pass. A bit later,
Bilal Mohammad Harun quite understandably went the forceful and direct route, ramming it at the bottom corner from the edge of the area, but Dare got down in time to scramble it behind.
Then came the moment that the home support had been dreaming of, as Benfleet mounted one of their few extended sieges of the match. There seemed no immediate danger as Romanian winger Sergiu Ţoie picked the ball up just outside his own half, but a dazzling series of one-touch passes would conclude with him chipping
Massoud Dob. After all of the Birds' previous work, this couldn't have been easy to bear.
It was a credit to Grilled's mental strength, then, that they kept themselves together, and
Vikram Mudaliar would find an equalizer off
Kalki Parvathaneni's urgent cross from the left side, several minutes on. However, Benfleet were more than good enough to drag the remainder of regular time out, and
Islom Davlatov's arrival for
Chan Ze Han seemed a leg-stretching exercise alongside an acceptance of two dropped points.
Kalki and Davlatov clearly had other ideas, though even the Grilled bench could hardly believe it when the former weaved his way through the entire right side of Benfleet's backline, before depositing it into the net. Awki Raymond kept his wits around him, and raced the ball back to the centre circle for a quick restart with Edward Dare joining in on a desperate last gamble; it didn't come off, as
Islom Davlatov instead punished them with an assured thirty-yard lob into an unguarded goalmouth.
