Title hopefuls Tampines Rovers moved up to fourth in the Great Eastern Yeo's S.League standings after trouncing Hougang United 3-0 at the Hougang Stadium on Friday evening.
All three goals came in the space of 13 second half minutes, with Mateo Roskam netting on either side of Fahrudin Mustafic's penalty.
After a scrappy opening period, the match burst into life in the 11th minute when Tampines' Roberto Alviz saw his 20-yard shot coming back off the bar. From the rebound, Ridhuan Muhammad found Roskam but the latter inexplicably skied his shot over from three yards out.
Hougang had an excellent opportunity four minutes later when Tampines keeper Rodrigo Pacheco was adjudged to have carried the ball out of his own box. But the custodian redeemed himself with a superb diving save off Diego Gama's resulting free kick.
Both sides then spurned half-chances. Firdaus Idros just failed to make contact on Ridhuan's searching ball while Fazli Jaffar miscued his shot after Carlos Delgado's pass inadvertently fell into his path.
Tampines' Rodrigo Tosi found himself at the end of two openings in the first half, but the Brazilian hitman was unable to put both efforts on target.
Tosi then lashed over nine minutes after the restart before strike partner Roskam showed him how it was done on 66 minutes.
Benefiting from Ridhuan's inch-perfect cross from the right, the former Sime Darby man guided his header into the bottom left corner.
The Stags duly doubled their advantage seven minutes later as captain Fahrudin made no mistake from 12 yards out after a Hougang defender was adjudged to have handled Roskam's header inside his own area.
Roskam then capped a memorable night in the 79th minute by slotting unerringly into the bottom left corner from close range after being set up by Alviz's slide-rule pass.
The result meant the five-time S.League champions closed the gap between them and leaders Warriors FC to 10 points, albeit with a game in hand.
Speaking after the game, victorious coach V Sundramoorthy was relieved that his side managed to grind out the win after a lacklustre first half. "In the first half, I don't know why our shots kept hitting everyone but not the back of the net," he said. "I have to give credit to Hougang who were stubborn and made life difficult for us.
"I was thinking it could end up as one of those days where we could be hit by one counter attack and lose the game. So fortunately we kept pressing on in the second half and managed to win.
"It's an important three points to push us up and keep us within touching distance of the top three. I hope this can turn things around for us. We'll see on Wednesday against Geylang International."
Hougang United: Ridhuan Barudin (GK), Yuki Uchiyama, Tengku Mushadad, Kunihiro Yamashita, Delwinder Singh, Nurhilmi Jasni (C) (Goh Swee Swee 83'), Atsushi Shimono, Carlos Delgado, Fazli Jaffar, Diego Gama (Fairoz Hasan 69'), Fareez Farhan (Lau Meng Meng 83')
Tampines Rovers: Rodrigo Pacheco (GK), Ismail Yunos (Jufri Taha 86'), Fahrudin Mustafic (C), Predrag Pocuca, Zulfadli Zainal Abidin, Ridhuan Muhammad (Ismadi Mukhtar 68'), Isa Halim, Roberto Alviz, Firdaus Idros, Mateo Roskam (Indra Sahdan 84'), Rodrigo Tosi