SHF Men’s Division 3 Hockey: C&C beat SIA 6-1 to go top of table

By Shadiq Al-Hussain

Sengkang Hockey Stadium, Saturday, August 27, 2011 — With the leaders of the Singapore Hockey Federation (SHF) Men’s Division 3 League, Police, not in action this weekend, second-placed C&C had a chance to go to the top of the table.

That was exactly what they did, rolling past the Singapore Airlines Sports Club (SIA) with an emphatic 6-1 scoreline.

C&C wasted no time at all, starting the match with a very attacking formation comprising four forwards. This paid off in the 11th minute when a mis-hit clearance by SIA’s Shivraj Singh (#18) reached C&C’s Shahrani (#53), who played the ball square to an unmarked Suren Sandran (#42) who tapped the ball into an open goal.

The score was doubled 10 minutes before half-time, when a third straight penalty corner for C&C resulted in Shahrani deceiving the SIA defence with a pass to Daniel Kwek (#35), who took his chance with glee.

C&C continued to dominate the first half, with Matthias Foo (#12) and Suren catching the eye with neat dribbling and ball-work which kept the SIA defence on their toes.

Perhaps the most telling statistic of the first half was that SIA had just one foray into the C&C ‘D’, following Devinder Singh’s long solo run into the C&C half. SIA’s Raghu Ram (#16) then received a yellow card for a blatant stick-check on Matthias, temporarily reducing his team to ten men, adding even more pressure to an already-overwhelmed SIA defence.

C&C started the second half like the first and just five minutes in, scrappy defending by SIA gave the ball to Rudy (#54), whose sweep-shot went through the goalkeeper’s legs and into the goal.

Seven minutes later, C&C executed another neat penalty corner move, with the ball reaching Daniel on the right. His sweep-shot into the bottom left-hand corner of the goal doubled his account for the day and gave C&C a seemingly-unassailable 4-0 lead.

SIA then found a new lease of life and began attacking with menace, winning three penalty corners in a period of maintained pressure. In the third of these penalty corners, Uma Shanker (#4) scored with a shot straight down the middle of the goal. With just 10 minutes left to play, though, it seemed too late to mount a comeback.

C&C made sure of that five minutes later when Khairullah took advantage of a defensive error to restore his team’s four-goal lead. The matter was then put to rest in the 67th minute, when Daniel completed his hat-trick with a well-taken goal.

The win puts C&C, with eight matches played, in top spot with 21 points but they are far from clear of Police, who, with 7 matches played, are in second place with 19 points. SIA, meanwhile, slipped into 9th place in the 12-team league, with 6 points after 10 matches.