Wayne inspires ARFC 4-1 victory over Republic Poly staff team

Playing on a rare Monday night, ARFC totally outplayed the Republic Poly staff team 4-1 after an inspirational performance from Wayne.

The match was played in an unusual 3 30-min durations as requested by the opponents.

ARFC started with this line-up:

Jersey no.	Name	Position
33	Talisman Derrick	Goalkeeper
20	Composed Eng Lai	Right-back
14	Combative Ron	Sweeper
15	Towering Toh	Stopper
6	Unbeatable Darren	Left-back
16	Marauding Guoxiong	Right-mid
4	Dynamic Soon	Centre-mid
7	Influential Sebastian (captain)	Centre-mid
2	Unpredictable Blackburn	Left-mid
66	Wonder Wayne	Striker
99	Powerful Alvin	Striker
Subs:
3	Astute-reading sweeper Elvis
9	ARFC Scoring Legend Haron
77	Dependable Jinzhong
78	Steely Tze Ern
xx	Rashid (guest player)
Absent:
5	Impeccable How Meng
8	Talented Chun Haw
10	Sublime Khim
11	Speedy Hee
17	Nippy Kenny
18	Determined Huiming
19	Skillful Weilit
21	Rampaging Raymond
28	Hard-man Tjioe
31	Vintage Chua
45	Commanding Ismail

ARFC opened the scoring in the 7^th min.  Wayne, who is probably the most-improved ARFC warrior in 2017, sped down the left flank before delivering a cross to Alvin.  Alvin took a slight touch to Soon who made a Paul Scholes-like run before side-footing the ball high into the net. 1-0 and this was Soon’s 75^th ARFC goal.

ARFC doubled its lead 7 mins later.  Alvin swung in a deep hanging cross from the left and Guoxiong, who was a constant menace down the right flank, anticipated the ball by stealing in from the blind side to nip the ball away from their defender.  With a sharp and neat swivel, Guoxiong drilled the ball into the far side of the goal for his 28^th ARFC goal. 2-0

Alvin then failed ARFC when he just couldn’t lay the ball to Sebastian who was lurking inside the box and the ball was clear.

Incredulously, Alvin repeated this but this time, he incurred the wrath of Blackburn.

ARFC then conceded a break-away goal. 2-1.

In the 2^nd 30-min half, Alvin exchanged passes with Darren before making his way to the left BY-LINE.  Latching on to Alvin’s neat cut-back from the BY-LINE, Haron showed his predatory instinct when he glided in to sweep the ball home with his left foot.  To the shock, amazement and anger of the whole ARFC and its 77,777 supporters who were watching the match live, the referee ruled that Haron was off-side!!!

Every footballer would tell you that a ball from the BY-LINE would never ever be off-side.

Sebastian then played square-pass with Rashid before swinging in a Beckham-like hanging cross into the box.  Haron read the ball but just headed wide.

In the 3^rd 30-min half, Tze Ern pressured their right-back into making an under-hit back pass to their GK.  Haron intercepted the ball and squared to Wayne who gleefully tucked the ball home for his 32^nd ARFC goal.  3-1

Derrick then made his by-now routine one-to-one save every match when he got down like Pepe Reina to keep out a certain goal.

ARFC then scored its 4^th goal in the match after some gengen-pressing which saw Darren, Alvin and Wayne facing their GK and defender only.  After a series of yo-yo passes which saw the trio pass to each other to let the opponents see stars, Wayne placed the ball home for his 33^rd ARFC goal. 4-1

Voting results:

Wayne – 8

Derrick – 8

Elvis – 5

Guoxiong – 5

Soon – 5

Eng Lai – 4

Ron – 3

Alvin – 2

Haron – 1

Darren – 1