Another Comeback...

...by The Turtles.

Terengganu made a strong second half comeback to win 3-1 after falling behind against bottom team, Perlis in their 2011 Super League match at the Sultan Ismail Nasirudin Shah last night. It seemed the incident of falling behind is becoming a trade-mark for The Turtles who already made eight positive comebacks from their 17 league matches so far.

They also have made late rallies in their away defeats to Selangor and Perak (FA Cup) while against Kedah they were unlucky not coming away with a more positive result.

Against Perlis, Head Coach, Irfan Bakti chose to field Mazlizam Mohamad and Ronny Harun while resting influential skipper, Marzuki Yusof. It was quite a strange decision by the experienced coach as he was already without regular, Hasmizan Kamarodin who was given an extended leave to be with his wife for the delivery of their child.

Thus it was not really a surprise when the new partnership failed to gel effectively which led to The Northern Lions scoring their goal by Nik Shahrul Hanizam when he capitalised on a defensive mix-up. Instead of introducing Marzuki, it was Abdul Manaf Mamat who was sent on in place of the beleaguered Ahmad Nordin Alias.

It was perhaps a tactical reshuffle as from the line-up, it was more like a 4-5-1 formation with Abdul Hadi Yahya playing as a lone striker. Introducing Abdul Manaf changed the formation to the more familiar 4-4-2 formation again.

However, it was the lack of sharpness of the Terengganu players that saw them playing below par as quite a number of passes went astray despite having a lion share of possession. This prompted uncivilized fans to hurl abuse at the players when they should be giving them encouragement to try harder.

These fans might as well stay away as their presence merely provoke stress to the players who were trying their best under conditions which were not helping them to consistently give their best in every match. The Perlis match was their tenth match in thirty days.

Irfan Bakti's attempt to rotate his squad seemed to backfire which gave credence to his statement that his squad does not have adequate strength in depth to give his players enough rest between matches.

Fortunately his striker Abdul Manaf who was in the midst of a dry spell in front of goal found his scoring touch back with a brace in the second half, sandwiching a strike by another player who have not found the back of the net in the last six matches, Ashaari Shamsudin.

Abdul Manaf first strike came nine minutes into the second half when he latched onto a through pass and finished the move with a low shot that left Perlis goalkeeper, Amini Ahmad Tabarani helpless. Then in the 68th minute Ashaari darted on a solo run past several Perlis defenders which ended with him beating Amini with another low shot.

Then in the 76th minute Abdul Hadi Yahya broke in from the right and sent in a low ball. Abdul Manaf anticipation was spot on as he connected with it to beat Amini at his near post. It could have been four and a ht-trick for Abdul Manaf but his wonderful header from a cross by Reeshafiq Alwi was ruled off-side by the referee assistant.

The win maintained Terengganu pressure on the two teams at the top of the 2011 Super League table. Kelantan won 1-0 at Johor FC while Selangor overcame Kuala Lumpur in Cheras with a 3-1 scoreline.



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Awards...

...Galore.

Cyclists Azizulhasni Awang and Fatehah Mustafa were named as Terengganu Sportsman and Sportswoman for 2009/2010 at a ceremony last night. The event which was held at Wisma Darul Iman saw the duo retaining the awards they won at the 2007/2008 edition.

Apart from the two winners, the event also saw another cyclist, Muhammad Adeq Husaini Othman named as the most promising male athlete while the female version of the award went to canoeist, Siti Rajiah Ali. The canoeing fraternity saw their men and women team won the best team awards while their association was deemed as the best managed by the selection committee.

Earlier in the evening several awards were presented to the respective individuals and associations.

The Leadership in Sports Awards were given to Dato' Mokhtar Nong and Mohamad Shapian Ali while Allahyarham Mohamad Muda was given a post-humous recognition for his deeds to sports. Khalid Mohamad Dahan's achievements with various Terengganu football teams was recognized with the Best Coach Award.

The Dungun Sports Council received the Best District Sports Council Award while the Sinar Harian newspaper was deemed to be the best in media coverage.

After these awards were handed out, guests were invited to help themselves to the spread on the table. Of course mad redo1 chose the simplest meal of all, satay. By the end of the session there were at least fifteen used satay sticks in front of him. Of course he helped himself to other meals too.

During dinner, guests were entertained with dance by the Sutra Dance Troupe, songs by talents unearthed during local RTM's talent search contests. The main draw for the dinner was of course, the evergreen performer, Hattan who sang three songs.

Then the ceremony got on with the formalities of speeches by the state Youth and Sports EXCO Chairman and the YAB Mentri Besar.

After the speeches, more awards were handed to the other winners. The canoeing fraternity were the biggest winner when they bagged the Best Managed Sports Association, both Best Men and Best Women teams and The Most Promising Women Athlete awards.

But the biggest awards of the night went to the cycling fraternity with the Best Sportsman and Sportwomen going their way. To add more joy they also saw the Most Promising Men Athlete being won by their rider.

To all winners, CONGRATULATIONS!

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Dull Affair...

...in kT

As expected, Kelantan returned to the top of the Super League table after their 2-0 win over Kuala Lumpur in Kota Bahru. This meant Terengganu are now in third place, a point adrift from The Stags and The Red Giants. It is still a long way to go and during this hectic period which only ends at the end of May, so many things could happen.

In order for The Turtles to keep up in the title race is to play good football but many would not mind getting results by playing 'ugly' football. But playing ugly football and NOT getting the right result would only mean fans are going to desert you en masse, such as the one on display when PBDKT T-Team took on Pahang last night.

The match, like the one between Terengganu and Selangor the night before was televised 'live' by Astro Arena. Unfortunately, it was not anything like the previous match with stray passes galore between the two sets of players. Chances, once again were at a premium.

The closest anyone getting the ball into the net was when T-Team's topscorer, Indra Putra Mahyudin smacked his shot against the bar from a corner, with the Pahang goalkeeper, Rosfaizul Azuar was already beaten.

The crowd were really getting on the back of T-Team striker, Haris Safwan who became the brunt of the blame for the team's poor performance. Perhaps it a was a spell that he was going through when everything he does just would not come off right. This time he lasted just until the interval, when he was replaced by Shamsul Kamal Mohamad.

T-Team dropped to ninth in the table while Pahang remained in tenth.



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