[Starhub League Cup] Backfired? As "Fresh Looking" Warriors crashed out

Teams marching out ... (c) 2014 Ko Po Hui

It was a night that things did not go according to the script with Warriors FC found themselves knocked out of the only tournament they have yet to win since they were known as Singapore Armed Forces Football Club (SAFFC) in local football fraternity.

A solitary strike in the extra time from former national striker Firduas Idros was deemed enough to see Tanjong Pagar United to the semi final phrase for another juicy encounter against Hougang United awaiting them.

For this match, Warriors coach Alex Weaver fielded a much superior-looking side as compared to the team he had against Geylang International that caused quite a stir in the running up to this Queenstown tie.

Having rested the majority of his key players during the 4-0 thrashing by the Eagles, the Englishman penciled the likes of Daniel Bennett, Shi Jiayi, Hafiz Rahim, Marin Vidosevic, etc. back to the starting eleven.

In the first half, it was the Warriors who were likely to make the breakthrough given their domination of the proceedings, but credit to the hosts for putting up a stellar performance to keep their visitors at bay with at least two chances to break the deadlock.

Warriors coach Alex Weaver after the match

A much evenly-contested second half saw both sides on par trying to outwit each other that failed to see either one took their chances and eventually had the match went to extra with substitute Firdaus scored the all important winning goal in the 116th minute.

A visibly disappointed Weaver summarized his take after the match by suggesting that it was a close game.

Said the former Hougang United coach:"It was a close, tight match with end to end action that could go either way and we had our chances during the match that we didn't take, if not we could have won it during the 90 minutes."

Tanjong Pagar Utd coach Patrick Vallee

Meanwhile, Jaguars coach Patrick Vallee attributed "good coaching and planning before the game" as the key factors in his side's victory last evening, obviously taking a swipe at his counterpart's team selection which resulted the thrashing by Geylang that landed the Warriors at the Jaguars' Den.

"It is always tough to play against a fresh team and I always respect Singapore football by fielding my best team for any match we play," said the Frenchman."If we win, we win with a better team and we lost, we lost with the team and there's not need for any justification for team selection."