Dindigul, Tiruchi in quarterfinals

DINDIGUL, MAY 12: The host, Dindigul and Tiruchi entered the quarterfinals of the 24th Tamil Nadu state junior inter-district football championship for T. P. Ramasamy Pillai Trophy at St. Mary's Higher Secondary School ground here on Saturday evening.

While Dindigul posted an emphatic 4-1 victory over Thiruvallur, Tiruchi beat Salem 1-0.

In the Dindigul-Tiruvallur tie, the first half was equally contested and ended barren and all the five goals came only in the second session. Dindigul regrouped its players in the second session bringing in Pandian Rajan in place of striker Sahaya Joseph and Senthilkumar instead of left back Sahaya Winny Kumar. These changes were to the good. Pandia Rajan, shifting to outside-left position made some good runs on the flank and sent centres too which threw confusion in Thiruvallur defence. He did not even hesitate to cut in to take shots at the goal.

Thiruvallur, which scored a big 6-0 victory over Cuddalore in the previous match could not produce the same from today and its forwards found it difficult to pierce the start defence put up by the local side, in which left stopper Mohandas was outstanding.

Striker Damen Robert Kumar opened the account for Dindigul in the 46th minute, received a fine pass from Auxiano. Damen could have scored another goal in the next two minutes but he headed out from close off a lob from Jeyaraj, having an empty goal infront of him as Thiruvalloor goalkeeper Ramesh was out of position.

In the next five minutes Dindigul goal nearly fell when Thiruvelloor outside-left Kumaran took a powerful shot at the goal from the top of the box. But goalkeeper Prakash brought off a fine save. The second goal came for Dindigul in the 62nd minute when Jeyaraj found he target off a Damen's pass.

Thiruvallur put up pressure to reduce the margin and succeeded in getting a goal in the 63rd minute. Outside-left Nagarajan sent a centre, which was blocked by goalkeeper prakash and off the rebound. Jeyakumar netted from then on both the teams were trying hard to get goals Pandia Rajan went on a solo in the left flank, entered the box and was about to score but before then he was kicked in the abdomen by Nethaji.

Rightly referee Sridhar pointed to the dreaded spot and Axiano made no mistake. This was in the 70th minute and Damen Robert Kumar completed the tally in the 72nd minute off a Pandia Rajan pass.

In the other match, Tiruchi scored the only goal of the match in the 10th minute, when striker Sathish Kumar, latching an a stray pass, found the net from the top of the box. Salem tried hard to get the equaliser and made some good moves too but the equaliser eluded till the end.

Earlier in the morning, Sivaganga, which had the major share of exchanges and umpteen scoring chances, should have won the match easily instead of losing to Vellore 4-5 via Sudden Death in a first round match. It was Sheer bad luck that Sivaganga lost the match.

The teams were locked goalless in the regulation time. In the Tie Breaker the teams scored three goals each. For Vellore, Suresh, Perumal and Vijayakumar scored. For Sivagangai, Manikantan, Senthilkumar and Ganapathy, who played as left stopper and kept the goal for the Tie Breaker, scored. In the Sudden Death, the first pair Srinivasan and Nalla Mohammed and the third pair Rehman and Vellian failed to score. The second pair Arulanantham and Karuppiah scored. Of the last and fourth pair Senthilkumar of Vellore succeeded, whereas Baskar of Sivagangai hit the post.

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