BG Tampines Rovers ease past Geylang International in SPL derby clash

SINGAPORE – BG Tampines Rovers retained their spot as kings of the east on April 4, when they cruised past rivals Geylang International 3-1 at the Jalan Besar Stadium.

The Eagles’ loss certainly puts a dent in their hopes of finishing second in the Singapore Premier League (SPL) this season. With 54 points, the Stags are now 10 points clear of third-placed Geylang with six games to go in the nine-team league.

It took Tampines just two minutes to get on the scoreboard. A free kick from Faris Ramli found defender Milos Zlatkovic and the Serb directed his header into the corner of the net, leaving Eagles custodian Rudy Khairullah rooted to the spot.

They then had a chance to double their lead nine minutes later when Glenn Kweh found Seia Kunori, whose shot was parried by Rudy. The rebound fell to Faris, but the Tampines winger fired wide from close range.

Geylang’s best chance of an equaliser came in the 19th minute following a throw-in, as Ryoya Taniguchi found captain Vincent Bezecourt, who thundered his shot against the post.

But it was their rivals who scored from the resulting counter-attack. Faris was again the provider as he found Itsuki Enomoto, who buried his shot into the bottom corner.

The Eagles pulled one back in the 33rd minute after a mix-up in the Tampines half and Shakir Hamzah found himself in acres of space to slot past Stags goalkeeper Syazwan Buhari.

Tampines quickly restored their two-goal cushion after a poor back pass from Takahiro Tezuka – Kunori capitalised to slot the ball past the goalkeeper and make it 3-1.

Tampines coach Gavin Lee said: “We started the game very, very well and it was the same for the second half. And that was our intention, because we knew how strong Geylang was from the start.

“But I think after we scored a couple and I guess, normal human nature, we took our foot off the gas a little bit. We became a little bit comfortable, gave possession away quite easily and we had to defend quite a lot of transitions from that, which was very unnecessary.”

Man of the Match Enomoto said his target is to score 25 goals in both the league and cup by the end of the season.

The Japanese forward, who is on 19 goals in all competitions this season (16 in the league and three in the cup) said: “I made quite a few chances but only scored one goal today, so I need to improve. Actually, we wanted to score more, but (that wasn’t the case), and Geylang are a very good team with many good players.”

Admitting that “second (in the SPL) is too far away now”, Eagles coach Noor Ali said: “I thought we gave the three goals away and they killed us. When you play against the likes of Tampines, there’s so much quality and this is what’s gonna happen.

“There’s still six more games to play. We just have to go back to training and start working things out... So let’s target a top-three position.”

Analysis

Geylang were completely outclassed by a dominant Tampines from the whistle, as the Stags kept SPL top scorer Tomoyuki Doi largely at bay.

Their error-prone defence could not handle the speed of Kweh and Faris as the duo exploited the spaces down both flanks before their substitutions on the hour mark.