Sharks depleted side looked to take a turn for the worse when Yi Quan ruled himself out for their next game after getting himself sent off at the weekend. His deliberate handball in the 17th minute was spot-on but remained questionable on his decision to stop an already goal-bound effort so early in the game which meant that his team-mates had to play with a man down for the remainder of the game. It added to an earlier woe when Captain Jeremy failed to start the game when his knee was still feeling the after-effects of the Sharks last game during warm-up.
The team started with a game-plan after their loss in the first encounter a couple of weeks ago and it nearly paid dividends early in the game but Nawi's chip missed the target with the custodian well-beaten off his line. Sharks game-plan however came undone after the sending-off of Yi Quan as the opposition converted the resulting penalty-kick. Worse was to come when the referee awarded yet another spot-kick after Daniel was adjudged to have handled the ball. Two goals down and playing with ten-man, it looked to become worse but Sharks managed to reduce the deficit after Fazail converted from Kit's cross against the run of play. A couple of goals later, Sharks ended the first-half 1-4. Second-half started with an unchanged Sharks side intent to limit the damage. While Sharks conceded another two goals to finish the game 1-6, they had a couple of chance to reduce the deficit further but failed to capitalised.
'It was a pity that we could not provide the opposition a much tougher resistance. We did good early in the game but the sending-off of Yi Quan didn't help our cause after we had to resist fielding Jeremy worrying he may aggravate his injury further. You can clearly see how disappointed Yi Quan was after his sending-off but we have to remember how old he is and hopefully he learns from it', said the manager.
'At this point of time, we just hope that the rest of the players remain fit for the remainder of the games. Surely our luck couldn't get any worse', he added.
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