In Dasch's first match since Feb 2000, we crashed to our first defeat in 8 games, thus leaving our unbeaten record in flames. But weep not, dear fans. It could have been much worse. Anyway, all of us were our usual cheerful selves after the thrashing, which goes to show we are too cool to bother about such petty things. (By the way, May 14 happened to be Mother's Day too. No, it's not a coincidence we played a match on this day. Instead of driving our moms crazy by staying at home, we filial sons stayed away from home instead.)

Good attendance by our guys and we were at about full strength for the game. Daniel Ding made his (typically goal-less) comeback here, and what's more, in a Dasch jersey too. A rare sight indeed, and too bad those of you who missed seeing him looking oh-so-very-slim (cough) in the famous Dasch blues and whites. Our much-adored idol Yiying also turned up, as did our ace defender Tianrui. Other mega-star players who appeared included Raymond, Minheng, Lester, Zixin, Chek, Eng Kiat, Desmond, RuiBin and Cheng Cai. Unfortunately all of them were off-form, off-target, slow and blur - the result of having stuffed themselves with too many hamburgers over all those months of inactivity.

The match was 10-a-side, as the opponents had only 10 men. We had 13 active men, so we had the advantage of rolling subs throughout, not that it prevented us going down 3 goals to nil eventually. The match kicked off with the opponents starting off very strongly, and threatening our goal dangerously. Their slick, fluid passing and control was a stark contrast to Dasch's wayward passing and lack of teamwork and understanding. We were losing the ball too often, and also losing the fight for the loose balls (so what's new?), and being generally out-machoed. It was also embarassing to note that the opponents were able to dribble past our guys with ease throughout the match.. we were simply making things too easy for them.

The only real shot of note in the first half from us was a fierce rising drive by Desmond (is he no. 28?) which hit the rugby horizontal post, which, sadly, is just above our improvised string 'crossbar'. All too often, we flopped near the oppostion goal and wasted the very few chances we managed to create. No surprise when our defence finally cracked in the 22nd minute, as another raid by the opponents resulted in us allowing their man to take a close-range shot which whizzed past Rui Bin, who was perhaps unsighted. It was evident that we are rather short of match fitness, as captain Kenneth, followed by Chek Keng asking to be subbed after just 25 minutes, just after we conceded the first goal.

It could have been 3-0 against us at the end of the first half. Towards the closing minutes, another shot was well saved by Rui Bin and the onrushing opponent somehow hit the rebound against the post and out. I mean, he was only 2m away from goal, so let's laugh at that fellow. How the heck can he miss??? (But then, Daniel would have sympathised.) Next, another panicky moment for our defence as having worked their way into our penalty area (again), the opponent's header was just marginally too high, bouncing off the rugby horizontal. At the 35-min mark, it was half time at last and we gratefully trooped off trailing just 1-0...

The second half was no better for us. It was just 5 mins old, in the 40 min when we let in our second goal. It was a low accurate grounder from the left which went in to our despair. The defence was AWOL again. So was the midfield and frontline. 2-0 down. We just could not get past the opposition defence and they were able to close us down effectively. On the other hand, the opponents were crusing along merrily and one highlight was when one of their men practically waltzed through our entire team, evading all our sissy tackles and bodychecks before (unfortunately for him) coming face-to-face with Rui Bin who superbly got down in time to block his shot. Then Bin got up to scream at our guys to "wake up your idea".. well, those were not his exact words, but you get the idea (and this is a G-rated kids-friendly site, so..) You know things are bad when even Rui Bin starts getting mad at our lousy play.

At the 68th min, with 2 mins to full time.. the RJC rugby team was at the sidelines waiting to jump in and take over the field. Being the time-keeper, I pleaded with them for just a little more time, and they were nice enough to agree. I was hoping Dasch could pull one goal back.. but what happened? The opponents got their third strike, as our tiring guys allowed one last-minute attempt by the opponent to go between our goal posts. It was the last kick of the match. Just great. Wonderful. Thus ended Dasch's 1st match of the new season - a 3-nil defeat.

OK, I'll leave it to the senior management to pinpoint what went wrong, cricitise everyone, allocate the blame and transfer-list the non-performers (which is, well.. the whole team). Till our next game when hopefully we'll have shaken off our match rust and sweated away our hamburger fat.