Story by REDintern Christy. Pictures by REDintern Zhijia.
National Inter-School A Division Boys Floorball Championship: Semi-finals, Tampines Sports Complex, Monday, July 21, 2008 – Meridian Junior College (MJC) pulled off a stunning scoring raid with two goals in the last thirty seconds to secure a place on in the final. Victoria Junior College (VJC) played a mean and aggressive game which effectively riled up the MJC players and messed up their usually neat formations. MJC, not used to such a playing style, were at a disadvantage, with VJC leading for the majority of the game. This was the first time MJC had such a hard time winning a match this season but ultimately they held on and triumphed 4-3.
Spurred on by the large number of supporters, VJC’s energy was at an all-time high. VJC Captain Dennis Wong (#19) gave VJC a head start by scoring with a brilliant free-hit that flew straight into goal to huge cheers. Despite numerous tries by MJC to find an equalizer, the VJC goalkeeper Amos Nadan (#21) and defense thwarted MJC splendidly to ensure that the first period ended 1-0 in VJC’s favour.
Of course, having earned this lead, VJC were not going to relinquish it so easily. A rare penalty was given in the second period to provide MJC an opportunity to equalize. A hush of silence swept across the court as Glendon Phua (#20), MJC captain stepped up to take the penalty. Despite the fact that Glendon Phua was MJC’s scoring machine, the VJC goalkeeper Amos Nadan (#21) was unfazed and remained calm and collected. The mind games had started. As MJC Glendon Phua (#20) inched nearer to the goal, the VJC goalkeeper bellowed a “HEY YOU!” (or at least that was what I heard) and shook the nerves of Glendon Phua, resulting in a penalty miss. This penalty save gave VJC another morale boost and at the 07:31min mark, Derrick Tay (#18) of VJC widened the lead by scoring a goal after a melee in front of the penalty box. VJC were now 2-0 up.
It was a tough time for MJC as they have been in the lead for most of their games. Still, it was impressive to see how strong MJC were, not just physically, but also mentally. Despite the deficit, MJC ploughed on to find a chance to equalize. VJC’s hostile style of play soon came back to haunt them. A VJ player was sent out for 2 minutes which allowed MJC a power play chance. MJC took advantage of the opportunity and an own goal by VJC gave MJC their first goal of the game to make it 1-2.
Motivated by the goal, MJC searched relentlessly for a chance to equalize. That chance came at 13:15 when MJC captain Glendon Phua volleyed such a hard and fast shot that it bounced off the VJC keeper’s body and into the net. At the end of the second period, the score was now two-all.
VJC started strong at the beginning of the third period with VJC Jonathon Tan (#9) smacking in a unstoppable goal that eluded the usually vigilant MJC keeper Lionel Boey (#30) to make it a 3-2 VJC lead. Again in this period, MJC had two power play chances due to repeated offenses by the VJC players. MJC failed to take advantage of the first chance they had but they made up for it with their second chance.
With less than two minutes left on the clock, MJC embarked on a power play and gave teammate Toh Zuan Ming (#9) chances to score. The MJC team worked hard to send assisted passes not just once, nor twice or even thrice for him to score. Unfortunately for them, it was all near-misses. Nonetheless, the MJC team did not lose faith in him and gave him a fourth chance and this time round he did not disappoint as he whacked the ball into goal with precision. 3-3.
Just when everyone thought that the game would go into extra-time, MJC captain Glendon Phua (#20) snatched the ball in the face-off and breathtakingly sent the ball flying into the net with deadly flair at the very last second.
It was the most thrilling match all season with emotions flaring up and the referees’ whistles going off every few seconds due to the high number of fouls committed. Kudos go to VJC for managing to lead most of the game and firing three goals into MJC net, given the fact that before this match, MJC had only let in a total of three goals for the season. Still, the most impressive part of the match was the “never give up” mentality of the MJC players. Before this match, we have only seen them as leaders, but after this match, we will not just see them as leaders but also, fighters.
Victoria Junior College will meet Yishun Junior College tomorrow, Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at Tampines Sports Complex for the 3rd and 4th placing clash at 1530hrs and Meridian Junior College will meet Raffles Junior College on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at Tampines Sports Complex for the final at 1530hrs.
hi, i was at tampines sports hall that day, happened to catch the vjc-mjc match. i would like to bring up a few issues regarding the match.
firstly, i highly doubt the time-keeping of the match. before the last two goals mjc scored, i am sure the timings were not that accurate. this shows the poor organisation of the whole game, where is the time keeping machine? how reliable is the time keeper. in a fast game like floorball, every second matters, just like how mjc managed to score a goal in the last second of the game. is it fair to the opponent team?
secondly, the referee. its definitely wrong to blame the game on the referees, but no one would complain about the refereeing if it was a fair game. just like the finals, the referees were indeed commendable. decisive, firm. bad refereeing would affect players in the midst of their games. vjc players were probably disturbed by the referees’ bad calls. it was nothing commendable that mjc came back in the last 30seconds.
and to christy:
Victoria Junior College (VJC) played a mean and aggressive game which effectively riled up the MJC players and messed up their usually neat formations.
what a nice way to start the report.
based on REFEREE’S reply,
i thought it would be good if you reveal which REFEREE you are. of course we can’t blame on the referees, but we got to understand this game is floorball. every wrong call given, may it be a freehit defensively or offensively, 2minutes, or even a penalty, may change the game. nobody blames anyone for losing a game. but i’m utterly disappointed at the calls that the referee made. disgusting, i would say.
to referee:
i am quite disgusted with your comments, you obviously dont deserve to be a referee(if you even are one)
in future kindly keep your comments to yourself before you know the full facts, thanks for the cooperation
I was a supporter at the mj vs vj match. Would like to thank #22 of mj for apologizing to us for falling on us when he crashed into the boards while we were watching the game(even tho it wasnt necessarily his fault). That showed humility. Good job! (:
@anon
physically yea, dey still run here run dere until e final whistle, but erm..mentally i dun tink so lor..wen mj played weaker teams at RP i saw their faces like “sure win one la”, but wen dey were down 3-2 that day, dey like about to pee in their pants la..thats a huge difference
i didn catch much off e match until e last period cuz i was late, i didn really watch vj but paid attention to mj…haha frankly i saw tis huge difference, wen mj played weaker teams in RP dey were like “aiya sure win one la”, but tt dae wen dey were down 3-2 ah i tell u their faces are like “siao liao”, almost wet their pants lyddat
anon: im sorry but from your comments i can tell you know nothing about floorball as a game and your evaluation of the vj team is extremely unjust.
to anon: It’s a fact that it is not stated in the rule book that shouting is not allowed, so it’s NOT a foul and why does it bother you so much? what do you mean by ‘resorting’ to such tactic to want to win? i bet anyone watching the match would agree that VJ showed a strong will to win through their fighting spirit in the court, and not through that ‘tactic’, since the penalty was only one small part of the game, and it may not have happened at all. so, don’t be sore.
mjc definitely played a great game, both physically and mentally. vjc was definitely very agressive, maybe vjc gk could continue using his tactics to help them win their next match. sad to say, resorting to such a tactic to want to win, reflects alot on e vjc team.
Benjamin Arshavin Goh (#10, RJC, forward)
Eric Tay (#1, VJC, forward
Jonathan Heng (#13, VJC, forward)
Jonathan Tan (#9, VJC, defender)
Marc (#28, YJC, defender)
Vincent Wu (#23, TJC, forward)
I think these are the positions. Please update. Thanks.
to referee: were you present at the match? if you’re not you probably hadn’t witness the standard of the referee. Im sure you would have blamed a bad referee in any sport if you were the player, wouldn’t u?
definitely the referees are only one factor in the losses, other factors may well be my lack of peformance or my teammates.
nevertheless, the referees were a big decider. and undoubtedly the club and national coaches i were talking about are fully certified referees, far better than those in this tournament, even participating in international games. So please, dont try to deny it, if you think youre good try revealing yourself and see what others say
@ dennis: why always use the referees as an excuse when you lost? haven you ever think what you as a player could have done to score that winning goal or prevent tt deciding goal.
are your club coaches, the national coaches or glendon a certified referees? if you think you can do a better job. be a referee. prove that you can be a good one. stop complaining.
haha sixdegrees, i am also impressed that you went through all that trouble… Though your revelation does not really fit into this comment thread. XD
kudos to both MJ & VJ,nice comeback for MJ and determined+inspiring performance for VJ, kool + exciting match sia
wish MJ gals and guys all e best in the finals btw!
great match!
@onlooker at TSH
agreed, too bad it was not the finals, but i believed that these two teams are the best in adiv, just that perhaps VJC was very unlucky
@christy
lol. i took a look at the results of the past polls.. went all the way from floorball to soccer and 1 name popped up twice – cheong baoren dj, of acjc. wow. that is seriously multitalented. fancy taking 2 sports and doing well enough to be voted into the top teams for both. amazing. gotta take my hat off to him. wow. =O
best match in the a div, played by the best teams
to dennis:
Thanks for providing the details. It sure sounds like an exciting game! Guess the VJC team should be pretty tired from the tough match yesterday…
Oh they are really secondary school players? I saw them refereeing some other matches and zhijia was just commenting that they looked like secondary school players.
to sixdegrees: haha. The more important poll you should take notice of is the floorball one. =)