Brunei DPMM vs Courts Young Lions

(April 6, Sunday, 8.15pm, Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium)

Written by: Kenneth Ho

Brunei DPMM will host Courts Young Lions in Brunei on Sunday, and there will be no better time for the visitors to try and gain a result against the title aspirants.

DPMM are in a sort of a slump since they incurred the first loss of their season in the 2-1 defeat by Tampines weeks ago. The Brunei side then followed it up with an insipid 1-1 draw against Geylang Internationals.

The stalemate against the Eagles also came at a price for DPMM as they lost their starlet Rodrigo Tosi in that game to injury. Without the Brazilian’s incisive passes and strong hold-up play, the Wasps looked less imposing offensively.

Aide Iskandar’s boys need to exploit this advantage should Tosi prove he is not fit to take to the pitch.

However, it will not be an easy task for the Young Lions to gain a result against DPMM. What has been the club’s biggest problem is not their ability to score, but to defend instead. Only five games have passed, but Young Lions have already conceded 13 goals.

Also, most of the boys will be coming into this match without much rest. Majority of the squad played in the Under-23s friendly against their Indonesian counterpart on Wednesday, and it may be too much of a stretch to assume the boys have fully recovered from their mid-week exertions.

Suspension: Jordan Webb (Courts Young Lions)

Key Men To Watch

Brunei DPMM: Roy O’Donovan

Should DPMM leading scorer Tosi not be fit for the match, the scoring duties will fall upon the Irishman’s shoulder.

O’Donovan is pretty decent with his hold-up play, but he seems yet to have gelled with his teammates.

With only two goals to show for so far, O’Donovan needs to work more on his communication with his teammates in order to ensure they fully utilise his good movement off the ball and help him find the net with more regularity.

Courts Young Lions: Delwinder Singh

With a porous defence being Young Lions’ achilles heel, Delwinder needs to take command of his backline and guide his relatively less experienced teammates.

The responsibility falls on the former Geylang International defender as he featured many times for the Eagles last season, and there is no excuse for him to say he is still inexperience.

A good tackler and reader of the game, Delwinder’s experience will be essential if his team want to achieve their first clean sheet of the season, or even a win.

Brunei DPMM – DLWWW

28/3/14      Geylang International 1-1 Brunei DPMM

23/3/14      Brunei DPMM 1-2 Tampines Rovers

14/3/14      Home United 0-3 Brunei DPMM

28/2/14      Brunei DPMM 2-0 Warriors FC

22/2/14      Albirex Niigata (S) 0-1 Brunei DPMM

Courts Young Lions – LLDLL

26/3/14      Courts Young Lions 2-3 Tanjong Pagar United

20/3/14      Geylang International 1-0 Courts Young Lions

13/3/14      Courts Young Lions 2-2 Woodlands Wellington

1/3/14        Tampines Rovers 3-2 Courts Young Lions

23/2/14      Courts Young Lions 0-4 Balestier Khalsa

Head to Head (S.League)

27/9/13      Courts Young Lions 2-3 Brunei DPMM

25/5/13      Brunei DPMM 1-1 Courts Young Lions

7/3/13        Courts Young Lions 0-3 Brunei DPMM

13/9/12     Courts Young Lions 1-3 Brunei DPMM

6/4/12        Brunei DPMM 1-0 Courts Young Lions