ARFC held to goal-less draw

In a match played under very humid weather at Stadia Braddell de Westlake, ARFC was held to a 0-0 draw by a very youthful and hard-running boys from the NUS.

ARFC was hit by the absence of several ARFC stalwarts, namely ARFC scoring legend Haron, Hard-man Tjioe, astute-reading sweeper Elvis, Kiat Gulam, reliable David Mak (father of Marco Mak) mean-machine Hock and unpredictable Blackburn. The first six’s absence was due to personal and work commitments while unpredictable Blackburn’s absence was purely due to influential Sebastiano’s oversight as he totally forgot to SMS him about the match. Hence, there were only 12 ARFC warriors turned up.

Dependable Jinzhong started in goal, with Towering Toh partnering determined Huiming at the heart of the defence to be flanked by entrepreneur Guoxiong and left-foot wizard Bernard. Influential Sebastiano, hard-working Tong, sublime Khim (who returned after his hand injury) and quick-silver Derrick formed the midfield quartet. Speedy Hee and WO Neo led the line, with powerful Alvin surprisingly dropped to the bench.

As expected, the youthful opponents soon utilized their speed to try to wear down the aging ARFC warriors. However, the defence, ably led by Towering Toh, held them at bay. Our strikers and flanks also had a hard-time breaking them down as they were totally out-run and “out-stamina” by their players.

There were nevertheless several good chances by ARFC, mainly through free-kicks and corners where several good balls were sent in but were not capitalized by ARFC warriors.

The second half started just like the first half. By the 67th min, the ARFC warriors were clearly tiring but used their experience to keep the opponents at arms’ length.

In the 77th min, hard-working Tong almost put ARFC ahead but his shot from inside the box was curled wide. Unlucky!!

Though the match ended goal-less, the ever-faithful fans applauded the worn-out warriors as they acknowledged that the opponents were clearly superior in fitness, speed and stamina. Even our sublime Khim, Speedy Hee, quick-silver Derrick, powerful Alvin, WO Neo and entrepreneur Guoxiong had no answer to break them down. It should also be noted that the opponents did not trouble dependable Jinzhong at all, a sound testament to how well our defence played in this match.

Speaking to John Dykes after the match, Man-of-the-Match Towering Toh thanked his fellow defenders for their good play “It’s never easy to play against fast and not-tiring opponents, but I must give full credit to my fellow 3 defenders for coping with this mammoth task, especially in the absence of astute-reading Elvis. I am very tired and really need a good massage now…..”