Written by: Muhammad Yazid

Woodlands Wellington suffered its third loss of the season after going down 2-0 to league leaders Brunei DPMM at Woodlands Stadium on Thursday evening.

However, Woodlands coach Darren Stewart refused to dwell on the defeat as he felt there was no shame in losing to the ’best team’ in the league, especially after the Rams went a man down twelve minutes into the game due to Walid Lounis’ dismissal.

“DPMM is a good team, they scored fantastic goals”, Stewart said.

“There was never a case of us coming back into the game. We were playing with ten men against the best team.

“I am more proud of all of my players’ effort tonight. We only had three days’ rest and we had so much guts against a superb team.”

Stewart was also pleased that his team managed to regroup after the break and restricted DPMM to their two-goal lead, especially after seeing the Bruneian side demolish many teams by a huge scoreline margin in recent weeks.

“It was a pleasing performance because we wanted to keep the scoreline at what it was and we somehow did it, but of course it may have been better if we had pinched something to maybe get back into the game.”

“We had only 10 men and our opponents had 13 men, you can imagine how difficult it was,” the gaffer added cryptically without explaining who the two extra personnel were.

For his counterpart, DPMM coach Steve Kean admitted that his side’s numerical advantage aided their cause in getting maximum points.

“They lost a man early in the game and that changed the whole game. It was tough for them and the rhythm was changed,” Kean added.

While the former Blackburn Rovers manager admitted that his team were a tad lucky to earn their penalty, he was adamant his side could have widen the scoreline had his players been more clinical.

“Those kinds of situations, sometimes you get it (penalty) but sometimes you do not,” he said.

“I told them to pace up at half-time because the game was very slow and I think we deserved to score more goals,” he concluded.