ARFC in valiant 1-3 loss

Coming up against a young and fit team whose players challenged for very first and second ball, ARFC dished out a commendable display before succumbing to a 3-1 defeat at Tampines SAFRA.

Prior to the match, ARFC was severely hit with a bad news as top-grade GK Derrick had to pull out, not from the PRC’s hole, but from the match.

Thankfully, Wayne sacrificed his playing time by agreeing to be the GK.

Kudos to Sebastian too as he turned up despite a gruelling running session just a few hours earlier.

ARFC started with this 4-5-1 line-up:

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

Both teams were evenly-matched in the opening exchanges.

Wayne then showed that he is also a good GK when he produced a world-class full-length flying save to keep out their fierce shot.

Spotted their GK a bit off his line, Ron unleashed a long shot from his own half, ala Xabi Alonso, which almost bounced over their GK.

Darren then came in to replace the tiring Sebastian at left-back an immediately made a telling contribution.  Darren headed the ball away which was picked up by Alvin.  Powering away from their tough defenders, Alvin cut inside and bent a brilliant curling shot from almost 30 metres to the top left-hand corner that left their GK rooted to his spot.  1-0 and this was Alvin’s 304^th ARFC goal.

The opponents then equalized 17 mins later. 1-1

In the 2^nd half, Chun Haw let fly a thunder-bolt from 27 metres but the ball was just 0.77 mm wide of the post.  Unlucky.

Sebastian’s corner was then flicked on by Alvin to the far post but no one was there to stab the ball in.

A great combined play down the right saw Lucas crossing in but before Alvin could pull the trigger, their recovering sliding defender intercepted and cleared the ball away.

The opponents then grabbed a life-line when they scored from a clear and obvious off-side position. 1-2

They then scored another break-away goal. 1-3

ARFC tried to launch a fight-back but in the end, the opponents’ superior fitness, naturally so as they were so much younger, told in the end.