Written by: Muhammad Yazid

Following Woodlands Wellington’s 2-2 draw with Hougang United in the season opener, Woodlands head coach Darren Stewart admitted that his opponents were unlucky not to have claimed three points.

“Hougang is a very good team. They are just unlucky. I wouldn’t say that we played very well and the result being a draw is very fair for us”, Stewart told the press.

“I feel superb gaining one point in this game because Hougang is team with a great bunch of players. Not many teams can come here to get points.”

The Rams had to come back from being a goal down on two occasions, and the tenacity shown by his players to achieve the comeback pleased Stewart.

“Everyone had an outstanding character and team spirit. But definitely it still can be improved,” he said.

“We really deserved something out of this game and the one point was it. Our pre-season wasn’t a very good one because of injury problems. We have four or five players who missed a month of training too. This is not an excuse, it’s reality.”

Stewart’s counterpart Hougang United head coach Amin Nasir on the other hand displayed his displeasure with his team and lamented his side’s lack of composure both in front of goal and at the back.

“I am disappointed with just a draw because of the number of chances we created and couldn’t finish properly.”

“There were too many lapses of concentration. My defenders couldn’t react quickly when it came to clearing balls. The defending of my team has to improve,” he added firmly.

“My team should learn how to keep leads because we lost it twice this game.”

Despite expressing his disappointment at the result, Amin was full of praise for former NFL team Eunos Crescent Shunsuke Nakatake, who made his first ever S.League appearance for the Cheetahs in the draw.

“He is excellent and has the quality of S.League players. I told him to shut down Woodlands’ midfield and close down on [Atsushi] Shimono, which he did very well.”