Moe From Behind
Ma Makes Good
A late surge from Pasir Ris side Moeinsingapore saw them hang tight in third place with a 4-3 away win at The Cooking Pot, if against a young and learnin' Grilled midfield that again gave a fine account of themselves.
Chia Kwang Tse for one had an energetic full debut, and had he scored from his headed attempt towards the end of the first half, the Birds might have taken this one after all.
It would be
Aw Keng Chuan and
Chad Thach reprising their midfield roles together with Chia, as
Tian Yonghang stuck with his insistence on blooding his youngsters. Against this, it was a Moeinsingapore side that had already beaten Grilled earlier this season, and who seemed every bit likely to repeat the feat, with rising stars Chua Chu Meng, Yang Feng Da and Abhishek Gupta starting in a frontline that Tian might have envied.
Still, the Birds were at home and with their own grizzled fellows who had seen and done it all themselves, which meant that the visitors weren't about to have it that easy. Their response was for Swedish defender John Kennea to pay special attention to
Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud after his recent hat-trick, and one would be hard-pressed to claim that Kennea didn't do a good job. There were other threats in Grilled's forward line, of course, chief amongst them
Chan Ze Han, who got the scoring started with an oh-so-clean strike with the defence backing off, in the 19th minute.
Moeinsingapore captain Juan Camilo Rengifo got an earful from custodian Luigi Confalonieri for that, but that little spat would be swiftly forgotten, as they charged the Grilled lines from kick-off. This wasn't even that successful as Yang got shifted way out to the right flank through
Lau Chu Soon's ardent harrying, but the striker then pulled out a ridiculous cross back to the middle.
Manuel Vadalà tried to contest it, but it was meant for Chua Chu Meng, who really only had to get his head onto it to equalize.
That was a bit disheartening for the home fans, who perhaps rightly felt that Lau didn't deserve that, but fortune would soon swing Grilled's way with Swiss referee Erni Jager spotting what seemed a minor infraction by Chris Ma in his own box.
Bhavya Panigrahi read Confalonieri's body language correctly during his penalty run-up, and put it to the other side as he went left.
Chia Kwang Tse would then nearly live the dream with his arcing header five minutes on, which sailed over Confalonieri... and scraped the crossbar.
Chan Ze Han's season would then be all but ended by Rengifo as both went in extra hard on recovering a loose ball, which had Chan reach it first by a split-second, only for Rengifo to put his legs through his unprotected left calf. The linesman could not quite label that a foul, to the loud disapproval of the home supporters in the stand behind him, but what was clear was that Chan was in no condition to carry on.
Kalki Parvathaneni was hardly a large downgrade, if it was any consolation.
Grilled did continue to dictate terms after the break, although they would miss Chan's directness in front of goal, with Kalki slightly off-colour. He would remain good enough to give defenders pause, and the Birds won a second penalty in the 60th minute, with Abd Hadi making a meal of Kennea's use of his arms. Panigrahi mixed it up by deliberately drilling it down the middle this time, which did the job too.
Moeinsingapore did have a stamina that the Birds were beginning to lose, unfortunately, and their renaissance began in the final fifteen minutes, with signs that their forwards had been saving up for it at least. Neither Panigrahi nor Lau could exactly be described as top-of-the-line markers at this stage of their careers, as Yang would show by squeezing between them to convert Farnoud Alizadeh's inbound pass in the 75th minute.
The Grilled fans were exhorting their team to just hold on, judging from their chants, but alas it was not to be. Abhishek Gupta would be left unguarded barely four minutes later, leading to a neat finish, and Kennea's yellow card was more a sign of the visitors' momentum, than any particular defensive failing. Tian's subs of Chu and Lau off for
Lim An Keng and
Yee Jian Hui would look ill-advised as Chris Ma found the winner in injury time, which in turn had a disgruntled Kalki booked for a laughably bad tackle in reaction.
