Written By: Muhammad Yazid

Courts Young Lions collected their first point of the Great Eastern Yeo’s S.League season as they managed a 2-2 draw with Woodlands Wellington at the Jalan Besar Stadium on Thursday night.

Both teams came into this match with two different objectives. For the Young Lions, they were looking for their first points of the season after defeats in their last two games while Woodlands were looking for their first victory of the campaign.

While the result may have pleased Young Lions Head Coach Aide Iskandar, he believed a win would have been a better outcome.

“We should have gotten all three points because we did play well. The two set-piece goals we conceded cost us two valuable points,” the ex-international lamented.

“We could have easily cleared the ball in both occasions but we were led down to miscommunication. No one knew whose duty it was to clear the ball at those instances.”

On the positive note, Aide was confident of how things will end up by the end of the season.

“This year’s team is better than last year’s. We are slowly improving this season. We lost badly in our first game [to Balestier], but gave a very good fight in the second game against Tampines, and now we have gotten out first point of the season,” the 39-year-old remarked.

“It’s never going to be easy so we need to keep working hard. We need to learn and grow, and achieve more points in the future. We are slowly improving.”.

His counterpart Darren Stewart was on the other hand, impressed by the way his opponents played.

“They are outstanding and It’s going to be a difficult year playing against them. We allowed them to play and got totally outplayed,” the Australian said.

“We played exactly how we played against Hougang, came back twice and we were pretty lucky to get away with a point.”

Stewart also took full blame for the result and refused to use midfielder Stefan Milojevic’s absence due to a back injury as an excuse.

“It is my fault because I am the coach. I take full responsibility because I sent them out to play, and players take full responsibility of their character,” he said.

“Not having Stefan is not an excuse.  I never ever say that one player will make any difference. It’s a pathetic excuse.

“One player doesn’t make a difference to a team.  If I say that it does, it means I am insulting the other players in the team.”