Written by: Khalis Rifhan

Hougang United and Warriors Football Club respective head coaches Amin Nasir and Alex Weaver hailed their players’ positive mentality after Thursday’s evening match which saw 10-man Warriors earning a 2-0 win over the Cheetahs.

Warriors were down to ten men in the 37th minute after custodian Hassan Sunny was shown the red card by referee W.Ravisanthiran for handling the ball outside of the penalty box.

However, the Cheetahs were unable to make use of their numerical advantage as they suffered their first defeat in the 2014 Great Eastern Yeo’s S.League campaign,

While Amin was upset that his side did not capitalise on Hassan’s dismissal, he still felt his team tried their best.

“With an extra man, it always felt we have confidence but if we don’t score or create chances, they [only need] one chance to punish us,” said Amin after the match.

“There is no dispute on our character. Our effort was not enough to create chances to score. We are still the underdogs, we have to regroup, recover, analyse and look forward.”

Amin also felt his side have made a great start to the season, and urged once again for his side to maintain their consistency.

“We got seven points in four games, we are definitely pleased compared to last year. We need the boys to be consistency. It is not easy so now we have to work hard for next game.”

Weaver similarly praised his charges for their brilliant performance despite playing with a man down for most of the game.

“There is quite a strong character in the side and we are seeing more of it now. We have done work in pre-season and we work on things like this where we took a player off and each of the half we played with ten players,” explained Weaver.

“We make sure we did not lose our attacking threats but we had to be sensible and make sure that we were strong defensively.

“Some people don’t understand why we do that but on nights like this, you can clearly see that sort of training pays off,” added the former Hougang coach.

Warriors will next play Balestier Khalsa at Jalan Besar Stadium on 28 March while Hougang will travel to Bishan Stadium to take on Home United a day earlier.