IHG Soccer Semi Finals by Sean Lim

Soccer v Hall 16 (Semi-final)
WIN 3-2

Friday, 21 February 2014

SRC MAIN FIELD

Farhan Azmi slotted home late into the 2nd half to propel Hall 2 into the Final for the second year running.

After some neat interplay down the left, the ball was set up for Yong Geng Tan to let fly from range. It was blocked by the Hall 16 defender, but the loose ball broke free to Farhan, who outmuscled his marker, held him off, and retained his composure to seal the win.

It was a fitting conclusion to a game in which Hall 2 always had the edge. The close scoreline does not reflect this superiority, but it does reflect the tension present in this make-or-break semi-final.

Hall 2 had got off to a flying start when an inswinging freekick from the left by Wong Zi Hao Billy found the Hall 16 defence all at sea, and Brendan Liang was left all alone to head Hall 2 into the lead.

This lead, however, was to last a mere 1 minute. Soon after the restart, an attempted sliding clearance by Captain Kenneth Gan was alleged by the referee to have deflected off his hand. A penalty was awarded to Hall 16, leading to voracious and heated protests by the Hall 2 players. Anders Aplin converted the resulting penalty, despite goalkeeper Arun Vinoth guessing the direction correctly.

Our players, however did not let this unjustified setback get to them. They continued to press the Hall 16 players, never letting them have an easy time. This was best exemplified by Nicholas Tai, who despite getting his first yellow card of the season for a late challenge, enjoyed his most effective game by far. "Neymar" Tai, who was more Dirk Kuyt on this occasion, completely ran himself into the ground, continuously protecting his right-back Blven Chan and helping Yong Geng double-up on Anders. The fatigue that was so evident on Nic's face led the watching ex-Captain Chai Ming Long to comment that "Nic looks like he badly needs a stick now."

Their tenacity and doggedness was reward at the stroke of half-time when Billy won a free-kick just outside the area. He got up, dusted himself, and stepped up to send the free-kick curling into the top corner. The keeper managed to get a hand to it, but it was not enough. Hall 2 were in the lead again, and rightly so.

After the restart, Hall 2 sought to slow the game down and just let the game petter out. This was fairly successful; though we only had 2 shots from Billy to show for, Hall 16 were also not getting any change off Vinoth.

Completely against the run of play, however, Hall 16 equalised. In a display of breathtaking speed, Anders picked up the ball in the centre circle, and went racing towards the left touchline, with Yong Geng in hot pursuit. Anders managed to outrun both Yong Geng and Blven, the covering right-back, before squaring the ball for their forward to tap home. Hall 2 was stunned.

The tension went up another notch when Brendan was booked for a slightly cynical trip on Anders after he had the beating of Brendan down the right. Anders obviously did not take too kindly to the foul and immediately squared up to Brendan, but the intervention of Kenneth Gan meant that any potential fisticuffs were nipped in the bud.

Then the timely intervention from Farhan occured. After that Hall 2 really sought to close the shop and hold out for the win, a move best embodied by the deployment of Satyajeet Akhilesh, a right-back by trade, at centre-forward for the last few minutes.

As a bonus, the Hall 2 supporters were treated to the amusing sight of Sat singlehandedly striking fear into the hearts of the Hall 16 defenders by harassing one of them all the way to the corner flag from the halfway line, with the supporters willing Sat to knock the poor fella over and score a dream goal. The term "wrecking ball" was created to describe this phenomenon.

After that minor filler episode, the referee finally decided that enough's enough, and blew the final whistle that signaled our passage into the finals, to the sheer delight of all supporters present.

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IHG Water Polo Finals by Sean Lim

Waterpolo v Hall 3 (Finals)
WIN 19-2

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

SRC SWIMMING POOL, NTU

In the end it was all a bit of an anti-climax. Like Captain Francis Koh said, this was a win that was 4 years in the making, but seeing it play out as it did, sometimes we do wonder what the fuss was all about.

As it turns out, Hall 3 had a serious labour crunch coming into this final. Unlike our team, Hall 3 really only had 9 players in their entire team, and on that day, 3 of them could not have make it. The end result was what we saw: a Hall 3 team that decided it would rather take an understrength, understaffed lineup to face the "firing squad", as they termed us, than to concede the final in a walkover.

So in light of this revelation, I guess it is fair to say, however grudgingly, that Hall 3 deserves a round of applause for even turning up for the first whistle. After our earlier clash in the preliminaries, they knew fully well this was as lost a cause as it could possibly be. But still they turned up anyway, facing the prospect of being on the wrong end of the spanking of a lifetime.

As JK Rowling puts it so aptly in The Deathly Hallows, "This cold-blooded walk to his own destruction would require a different kind of bravery."

In such circumstances, the match becomes a mere afterthought; whatever happened before, and after, as I found out on hindsight, eclipsed it so thoroughly. Against opponents in such dire straits, it really doesn't matter how many goals Toh zy scores, or how many saves Kenryu made.

As a matter of fact, it was probably less than the number of fingers on my hand, which is really sad, isn't it? Our graduating seniors have been looking forward to this day for 4 years, yet they were denied the opportunity to really immerse in the atmosphere of winning a final, to get the feeling that they really deserved this win. The same goes for the other freshmen players like Myran, Yuan Song and Vinoth. We created a video to generate hype, getting our residents down to share in the excitement of playing in a final. Well, whoever was watching a waterpolo game for the first time would not be in a hurry to watch another. Hall 3 never even stood a chance of achieving an underdog win, playing shorthanded for the whole game with absolutely no substitutes.

A situation where no one walked out a winner.

Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we see the things we want and expect to see. We then let our biases and emotions take over, saying and doing things that we ruefully regret later on. It is usually prudent to understand the whole picture before jumping to any hasty conclusions, causing misunderstandings when the whole debacle could have so easily been avoided.

So while we take pride in our waterpolo team's win, let us also recognise that Hall 3 did what they did because they had no other options. Playing with 6 was not a malicious act to taint our victory, but rather a valiant last stand against all odds. I say this not with the intent of being politically correct (all of you should know by now that's not high on my list of priorities), but with the hope that upon reflection, cool heads, rationality and empathy will prevail.

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IHG Touch Rugby Quarter Finals

Touch Rugby v Hall 14 (Quarter-finals)
LOST 1-4

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

SRC Main Field, NTU

Hall 14 stunned the pre-game favourites Hall 2 today as they executed their game plan to perfection to eventually reach the final.

Never had a simple game of scissors, paper, stone carried so much significance. Hall 14 won it, and with it the right to kick-off. They then promptly took advantage of the opening possession to score a try before anyone from Hall 2 had even touched the ball.

Shellshocked by the early setback, Hall 2 never fully recovered. Misplaced passes were a common bugbear, and by half-time Hall 2 was 3-0 down, with the 3rd try coming from some sloppiness in transition that allowed a Hall 14 player to run across half the pitch at full speed.

Captain Jonathan Wong's half-time team talk was inspiring to say the least, and the team took to the field for the 2nd half full of renewed hope and vigour. Alas, time waits for no man, and despite pulling 1 try back, our boys eventually ran out of time to reduce the deficit even further.

Our rugby boys have trained hard for the past 6 months, spending every Saturday at Dempsey Road honing their skills, yet the result today simply does not do justice to the amount of effort they have put in. Perhaps it was nerves, perhaps it was pressure, or perhaps it was just the scissors-paper-stone, but today was not a true reflection of what our team is fully capable of.

Nevertheless, we hope that the collective memory of the team will remember this day, and we hope to see the team in action again next year, with more resilience than ever before.

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IHG Soccer Quarter Finals by Sean Lim

Soccer v Hall 9 (Quarter-finals)
WIN 8-0

Tuesday, 18 February 2014

SRC Main Field, NTU

Star player Brendan Liang showed that he was unaffected by an illegal tapping-up attempt by Hall 16 to lead Hall 2 to a crushing 8-0 win over Hall 9 and into the semi-finals.

There were allegations surrounding Brendan pre-game, with rumours circulating that Hall 16 had approached him to join them next season on a free transfer, enticing him with a lucrative offer that includes an air-conditioned room. But he flatly rejected their offer, and promptly showed exactly why Hall 16 wanted him with a stellar performance that concluded with winning, and converting, a penalty. There are now even more rumours that Brendan could be rewarded for his loyalty with a place in Sports Senior Management, though this is purely speculation.

Brendan aside, it was, as the scoreline suggests, a fairly straightforward game for our boys. In truth, we were helped by some particularly dodgy goalkeeping by Hall 9, flapping at everything that was in the air. Things he flapped at include but are not restricted to, a cross from Arnold Wee, a Wong Zi Hao Billy corner and a Billy free-kick, all of which led to goals.

Yong Geng Tan also scored, but there were suspicions that, great player he may be, he was actually aiming for the other corner. Even Nicholas Tai scored; it was that sort of game.

In other news, Arun Vinoth could be heard complaining about how his lower back was strained from the number of times he had to bend down to pick up "shots" but he should recover in time for the next game.

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IHG Table Tennis FP

Table Tennis v Hall 1 (Final Pool)
LOSE 2-3

Monday, 17 February 2014

SRC Table Tennis Courts, NTU

Today marks the end of the journey of our table tennis team for the season as they lost to hall 1 with a scoreline of 2-3. Although they lost this match in the final pool, we still congratulate them for their fighting spirit and all the hard work put in the past few months to come this far.

Our females single, Tham Yi Hui, and double players (same name haha),Adeline Seah and Adelene Tan, both won their matches in a breeze with a score of 3-0 respectively. They showed no mercy and wowed us with their quick actions in returning each ball. In the mixed doubles, Chan Hua Peng also showed extraordinary moves with his serves and returns that put the opponents in shock.

Special mention to players Shaun Chng, Tan Yuan Song and Lim Jia Chang who put up a great fight too. As hall 1 boys are generally stronger and fitter, our hall 2 boys were put under immense test. The male doubles match then became the deciding match of the night where the scores were just so close and every single point mattered. Luck wasn’t on our side and under all the stress by the supporters; they lost their match by just those mere few points.

Tonight ended on a very emotional note but regardless of that, we still give three cheers to our table tennis team!

Credits to Rachel Leong

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