Friendly: PMC vs COS (19th January)

The 2nd friendly of the new year was with PMC vs COS, Church of Singapore, made up of players from churches such as RLC and NCC. It was a windy Sunday afternoon and PMC squad turned up with a full squad of 20 players with varying ages, whereas RLC came equipped with a thinner, but clearly younger squad. The key objective of the friendly was to ensure that all 20 players had a decent run-out and to get match fit for the new season in March.

PMC started off very well, controlling the ball well in midfield, despite initial robust challenges from ROC. The DM pairing of Sheldon and Timothy was holding the ball well, and Kee Min in his new AM role was winning the ball high up the pitch. It was certainly a good start for PMC when a corner found its way to Isaac, who made no mistake from close range, for his 2nd goal in as many games this season. Sensing that it made a good start to the match, PMC kept up the pressure, but as COS settled, they played much better passing football, using their wings to good effect and threatening a number of times through their pacy wingers and forwards. It was on one of their forays that a cross was insufficiently cleared, leading to a shot from outside the box beating everyone as well as Michael in goal. COS took the wind in their sails to put pressure on the PMC goal. What PMC could do was to clear the ball for Isaiah to chase or hold, but clearly the match was going the way of COS. Before the half was done, COS took the lead through an excellent move down their right wing, with a whipped cross ending with a glancing header into the PMC goal. At 2-1, the match was still open, and PMC re-grouped at half-time to try to get back into it.

Many changes were made in the 2nd half to ensure that everyone got a run out. The 2nd half played out very much in the same way as the 1st half, even ending with the same scoreline of 2-1 in favour of COS. This time it was COS who scored twice early in the half to lead 4-1, before a massive PMC fightback heaped tons of pressure on the COS goal, leading to Isaiah's low cross finding Yi Jun for PMC's 2nd goal. From there, PMC sent wave after wave of attack. Jingzhong, Yi Jun and Isaiah all had good chances to score, but were denied or missed.

Overall, it was a positive display, but defensively, improvements are needed before the season kicks off.