Written By: Kenneth Ho

Brunei DPMM Steve Kean felt his team did enough to merit a 2-0 win over Harimau Muda on Friday evening at the Hang Jebat Stadium.

Brian McLean opened the scoring in the 30th minute with a header off a free-kick while Rafael Ramazotti hit the back of the net six minutes later after an error by Harimau goalkeeper Farhan Abu Bakar.

The win was anything but pretty, Kean admitted. However, he was more than happy to have picked up another three points following a 2-1 win over Hougang United in their last game.

The win places DPMM in a good position at the top, where they are ahead of Balestier Khalsa by six points while Tampines Rovers are nine behind with two games in hand.

“It’s a big three points for us, it keeps the momentum going,” Kean said.

“It’s been a good trip considering we haven’t been back home since the Hougang game and to pick up this two victories at this point of the season is fantastic.”

Kean was also pleased to see his side had learnt their lesson as they became more cautious after leading 2-0 and did not attack senselessly.

This, after contriving to throw away a two-goal lead against Home United two games ago and needing to come back from behind to draw the game 4-4,

“It was a good sum up, efficient. In all honesty in the first half we weren’t on top of the game and I felt we were much better in the second half,” Kean added.

“I thought we were efficient against a good Harimau side, which is difficult to play against because their young players get on the ball and want to impress and they all have got good individual skills.”

Kean’s counterpart Razip Ismail was not so happy with his charges’ performances as he admitted they were second-best throughout the game.

“We struggled with our performance…our passes tonight were a huge let down cause we lost a lot of the ball,” the Harimau coach asserted.

However, Razip rued the few moments his side failed to capitalise upon to get back into the game.

Adam Nor and Amirul Hisyam both came close with long-range effort and were thwarted by the woodwork and DPMM goalkeeper Wardun Yusoff.

Amirul in particular was unlucky to see his shot come off the post before Wardun quickly gathered the ball just as it seemed it was going to roll into goal after it rebounded off him.

“DPMM are very lucky. If we could have scored one goal, that second goal will come so they are lucky from that situation,” Razip lamented.

“We tried hard even though we never had a clear chance at goal.”