Postal deliver surprise win

Venkatesh scored the all-important goal in the 16th minute to give Postal their second win in as many games over a surprisingly poor ASC.

The formbook suggested that ASC, who routed RWF 4-0 in their first game, would have it comfortable against Postal, who had laboured to a 2-0 win over SAI in their opener. But the match told a completely different story as Postal controlled proceedings right from the beginning and rarely relinquished their hold. Their two wide players, Arun Pondey and Amoes, constantly threatened the ASC goal with lung-bursting runs. The match-winner, though, came off a mistake from the ASC defence. A goalkick from Postal goalkeeper Ravindran saw the ball skim off ASC defender Arunjit’s head nicely onto the path of Venkatesh on the left. The forward cut past Arunjit’s defensive partner Suresh and calmly slotted it past goalkeeper Balwant to give Postal a deserved lead.

ASC tried to answer back immediately but were restricted to some long-range efforts from former ONGC midfielder Jotin Singh.

The Armymen’s best chance came late in the first half. Karmakaran played a nice ball to Thyagarajan on the left, who in turn swept in a perfectly weighted low cross to Rama Chandran. The last deflected it from three yards out, but was denied by a brilliant reflex save by Ravindran.

As the second half wore on, ASC tried desperately to salvage a draw, but missed a couple of decent half-chances. Pondey and Amoes were finding space with ASC going all out, Pondey missing a glorious chance to make it 2-0 by shooting just wide in the final minute with the goalkeeper beaten.

Other result: ‘A’ Division: Bangalore Mars: 5 (U Babu 12th, 33rd, Deepak 38th, Dinesh 52nd, Karthick 81st) bt Oriental: 1 (Emmanuel 2nd).