Tremendous Team Spirit Behind Warriors Comeback Win Over Stags, said Weaver

Watched the game from the media tribune 

Warriors FC bounced back from their midweek debacle to claim maximum points in 3-2 win over arch-rivals Tampines Rovers at the Jalan Besar Stadium.

A pleasing Alex Weaver walked into the room before attributed the factors behind the comeback win over the Stags.

"Two factors behind the win tonight," said the Warriors tactician. "First, we have tremendous spirit in our team."

"And good teams win games when they don't dominate the game. Secondly, it's the attacking strength in our team that I thought we did relatively well other than the two sloppy goals we conceded."

First of that two sloppy goals came in the 21st minute when veteran ace Indra Sahdan made no mistake from a ball centered from the left by Brazilian Rodrigo Tosi with a jaded Warriors' backline gifted with that assistance.

As suggested by the Englishman that Tampines being the more dominant side in the first half, but failed to capitalize on that advantage to build up from that and duly punished by Fazrul Nawaz just at the stroke of half time.

The unmarked 30-year-old striker has been on song since making his return to Warriors weeks ago, placed his name on the scoresheet by heading home from close distance by latched onto a ball floated in by Croatian import Miroslav Pejic from the right.

When Fazrul with his trademark scrum cap, which he wears it during matches since last year due a skull injury sustained a year before that, scored the winning goal (his fifth of the season) in the 83rd minute, it was nothing more than compliment paid to him by Coach Weaver during the post-match press conference, when asked the significance of having the predator in his team.

"Fazrul is the best Singaporean striker in the S.League and you just need to put him inside the six-yard to do his stuff." declared the former Hougang United coach.

"Furthermore, we did well in soak up (the Tampines' attacks) when I felt we didn't settle in early and were not tightened up in midfield, but it's just six games into the season, folks and we have done nothing yet." added Coach Weaver for suggesting that the best have yet to come from his team who are out of running in the AFC Cup now.

Coach Weaver in his customary warm-up attire - white shirt (file shot)

Probably, it was that reason when saw the Warriors made eight changes for this titanic showdown with only skipper Daniel Bennett, Hafiz Rahim and custodian Daniel Ong being those started against Bengalaru in early this week.

"I felt they (Warriors) fielded their strongest team when playing against us, since they are already out of the AFC Cup." said Tampines Rovers' coach V Sundramoorthy after the match that saw them stay put in fifth position in the standings.

"It's not a positive result when we were up against a good team that we just have to keep working hard with twenty one games more to go, we tried to minimize the opponents but it was hard run out there,

"And we kept conceding soft goals like we did tonight, which it's more on individual coverage in our defending that is something we need to work on, other than that we had more possessions in the first half to score more goals."

Indeed, the Stags were all over the Warriors half in the first period of the game that other than the Indra's strike earlier, they could only find themselves celebrating in again the 51st minute when former DPMM star Tosi textbook-ed in from near post after a brilliant run from another former Wasps import Roberto Alviz who crossed it over for the Brazilian to settle the rest.

But the designated home team, despite by partisan support from students of Temasek Polytechnic, failed to trouble the defending league champions further and paid the price for the lapse of concentration when Nicolas Velez levelled the score 2-2 in the 72nd minute that eventually led to final nail of the coffin nine minutes later.

A brilliant save from Ong in the dying seconds of the match off a half volley by Tosi was instrumental in the hard fought win by the most successful club in Singapore that Coach Weaver personally went up to him after the final whistle to show his appreciation.