Sharks were left with themselves to blame after an abysmal second-half performance which left many wondering what happened after a strong first half when they took an early lead only to go down 1-2 at half-time despite them taking the field with a makeshift side and without a recognised centre-back which forced a major reshuffle in defence with Kelvin playing in an unaccustomed sweeper role. While their first half performance were commendable, their second-half horror show was simply inexcusable. As Kelvin summed it up in his own words, 'We just lack the commitment and desire to match our first-half show today.'
The team however started brightly as in their last game when they put aside all their on-field problems with regards to the absence of key players as they took the lead courtesy of Heng Li. They kept up the tempo for a good 20mins before the opposition gain a foothold of the game and equalised 10mins before time as Jeffrey were easily brushed aside by the opposition winger to find his team-mates with a pinpoint cross in the penalty area. They were down 2-1 shortly afterwards after the defensive line were caught flat-footed. The Sharks confidence to push for the equaliser in the second-half didn't translate into action as they quickly conceded another goal as the defence were caught ball watching, much to the disgust to the manager. Just when the Sharks thought things couldn't get worse, their top poacher Heng Li was forced to limp off with a reoccurence of his ankle injury. That put paid to any hopes of the Sharks getting back into their game. With the forwards and midfielders unable to hold on the ball to make any meaningful chances, the defence crumbled with the constant pressure as they went on to concede further goals to condemn them to one of their worst defeats.
Manager embarrased at poor defending
Sharks manager was not a happy man as he labelled his side's second-half performance as embarrasing.
'I thought we started the game well and pegged Real Madraz back in the first half. But the first time their winger had a chance to cross the ball, we give them a schoolboy goal. The winger had time and space to pick his man in the box. The forward then had all the time in the world to pick his spot and it's 1-1. That's about summed my back four up. For whatever reason, they were just shocking today. There's no excuse even if we started without any recognised centre-backs. If you defend like that in any matches, you will get beat. I just hope it is a one-off because I just can't see us playing that badly again as far as the defensive unit is concerned.'
Sharks manager continued, 'A jolt like this is embarrassing and it should hurt your pride. I hope my players are feeling the same way I am feeling at this moment in time. You just don't want to see your team perform in that manner. I felt we could have got back into the game at the start of the second half but the first time the ball got into the box, the whole defence were caught ball-watching as the opposition forward forced his way to head it into goal. Once you are 3-1 down all the bad habits come in and we defended exactly the way we had when we conceded the first goal - badly. You never want to get beat to a scoreline like that. I've told the players exactly what I thought of their performance - it was sheer bad defending from individuals which doesn't happen very often and we were mentally weak after the third goal. The post-match debrief shows that the players understand what went wrong and you learn lessons from a performance like this. The important thing now is to regroup and think about our next game.'
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