Football
Gabriel Tan 9y

Tampines look to maintain ruthless S.League streak against Young Lions

Tampines Rovers will be hoping to issue another statement of their Great Eastern Yeo's S.League title intent when they host Courts Young Lions at the Jurong West Stadium on Saturday.

After struggling for consistency all season long, the Stags finally produced a dominant display on Tuesday to record a 5-1 win over Harimau Muda.

With two games in hand over leaders Brunei DPMM FC, Tampines could eventually find themselves just two points off the pace despite many already ruling out their chances of being crowned champions.

Still, coach V. Sundramoorthy is refusing to throw in the towel just yet and is aware how important a win against the Young Lions will be come Saturday.

"The marathon is coming to an end and we want to make sure we're there at the finish line," he said. "Three points against Young Lions is a must if we are to keep pace with the leaders.

"I believe if we can get another win, we'll really be putting ourselves in contention for the title."

Tuesday's triumph over Harimau Muda was particularly pleasing for Sundramoorthy, given it was the first time his star-studded attack really managed to fire on all cylinders.

And the former Singapore international is hoping it will stay that way from now till the end of the campaign.

Sundramoorthy added: "The difference against Harimau Muda was that we took our chances.

"In all our previous games, we created so many chances but the ball just didn't want to go in.

"Hopefully, we've now turned the corner and we're just looking forward to each game that comes our way."

As if coming up against an in-form and hungry Tampines side is not a tough enough test as it is, Young Lions will also be hampered by the fact that Saturday's clash will be their first competitive outing in over three weeks.

They will be looking to snap a two-game losing streak following back-to-back defeats to DPMM and Home United, although coach Juergen Raab will be aware his charges have a terrible record against their upcoming opponents.

In fact, the Young Lions have lost their past ten league meetings with the Stags, with their last victory coming back in June 2010.

Both teams met once earlier this year in the second week of the campaign, with Mateo Roskam scoring the only goal of the game to hand Tampines a 1-0 win at the same venue.

Tampines Rovers Probable Lineup: Rodrigo Pacheco, Ismadi Mukhtar, Fahrudin Mustafic, Jufri Taha, Zulfadli Zainal Abidin, Firdaus Idros, Isa Halim, Naeem Rahimi, Roberto Alviz, Mateo Roskam, Rodrigo Tosi

Courts Young Lions Probable Lineup: Syazwan Buhari, Fadli Kamis, M. Anumanthan, Amirul Adli, Farhan Rahmat, Ammirul Emmran, Afiq Noor, Jordan Webb, Nur Na'iim Ishak, Sherif El-Masri, Amy Recha

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