Only Way Is Up
The Birds' new sponsor - electric car company Volto - would be introduced right before the match, and while
Tian Yonghang suggested that they were mostly after the exposure, they could not have been too pleased with the result. "I like to think that the name of our club means something." the homegrown head coach groused. "We all knew that it would be a mismatch, but I would have preferred to see more defiance."
With Grilled Birds now at the bottom of II.4, their home match against Benfleet Branch 2 next weekend might be their best hope for points for a time. Benfleet were taken apart by Pulau Ubin flagbearers CE Sindiket 07, who boasted of an uncommonly-dynamic right flank manned by the interchanging duo of Hennes Silverman and Ulpiano Aguilar. This made for a 3-0 win by the visitors, who moreover kept Benfleet to a single shot on target, by Hermano da Cunha.
These victories shot Curiosity and Sindiket to the top two spots, with Club Dinosauria coming next, for a disciplined 2-0 over Arcturules, that had Jouko Hyvärinen pick up two yellows for the latter. Ang Mohs in flip flops rounded out the opening-day winners, then, as they overturned Moeinsingapore's two-goal lead late on, which must be a great disappointment for the Pasir Ris club.
It was a whole other story for Farmer Bunnies, who smashed semi-pro arrivals J West 7-0, in today's match. III.9 had seen quite the shakeup in the off-season, what with Kungfu 11 and H0u9ang R0ver5 involved in swaps to III.14 and III.13 respectively. This had perennial movers Brighton UK come in to fill the gap, with J West something of an emergency inclusion, having come close to being dropped from III.13 themselves.
Vitaliy Efendiev smelt blood, and last season's league Golden Boot winner with eight goals would come halfway to that tally in a single game, as he took J West's amateur defenders for all they were worth. Better - and acutally professional - goalkeepers than Harizul Izuan bin Ismail might well have blocked his two free-kicks, and as it was, all he had to do was to get them on target. Efendiev needed only an hour to complete the feat, mind, with replacement
Ibrahim Zahran Al-Maashany scoring on his first touch after coming on.
This has the Buns in a great position at the top of the table, but acting captain
Richard Agyei was under no illusions that the next games would be as effortless. "It's good that we built a healthy goal difference today." the Ghana international offered. "But that's for the easiest league fixture we're likely to have all year. Really McCoys may have lost today, but I expect them to offer a much tougher test next Sunday."
