Rama Rao's hat-trick was the feature of Oriental Football Club's come-from-behind 5-4 win over the much-stronger Southern Blues in the BDFA Super Division league at the Bangalore Football stadium here on Saturday.

While the last-minute change in fixture -- KSP were originally scheduled to take on BEL -- irked the surprisingly small crowd, the result doubly angered them. On cruise mode after a slow start, Blues came a cropper in the second half to let Oriental score a thrilling win. There was nothing thrilling about the fare the two teams dished out, though.

Despite drawing first blood, Oriental were down 1-3 at half-time. Having made their presence felt only in fits and starts, they looked a transformed team all of a sudden. Or, so they were made to look.

The Blues forwards, who ran rings around the Oriental defence in the first session, seemed to have lost the plot after the breather. Neither did their forwards make any threatening move into the enemy territory, nor did the defence fall back to keep the Oriental strikers at bay.

Rao scores

That seemed to suit Rao fine. Having opened the account with a penalty conversion in the ninth minute when Arun was brought down by Nilesh Kumar, Rao got into the scoring act again in the 55th minute. After his first-time crack at goal was saved by goalkeeper Dayalan, Rao found the far corner with a lob off his second attempt to make it 2-3.

Sanuj made it 4-2 for Blues with a feeble shot that Oriental custodian Tony hardly made an attempt to stop in the 58th minute. But Rao got his third five minutes later. Mal (72nd) and Arumugam (76th) completed Oriental's fine day in the office. Earlier, Deepak Kumar (6th), Nirmal Kumar (32nd) and A Roy (45th) scored for Blues.

Other result: 'A' Division: BHEL (EPD): 4 (Tony (18, 70), Thyagu 44, Parthiban 63) bt SWRI: 2 (Vijayan 59, Mahesh 66).

Sunday's matches: 'A' Division: Govt Press vs ADE (1.45 pm); Super Division: BEML (E/M) vs ASC (3.45 pm).