KUCHING: Two disallowed goals and two clinical strikes from the Rhinos ended Sarawak hopes of winning the second home match at the State Stadium, in Petra Jaya here on Saturday.
Despite the 1-2 loss, a face saving salvo from crowd favourite Pedro in the late 88th minute gave the fans something to cheer.
Some 7,000 fans turned up to support the state team in their second home match following an encouraging 2-0 win against Penang in the last game.
Home fans were not only disappointed but also furious at the decision by linesman Hamdi Omar when he flagged for offside in the 67th and 73rd minutes to disallow the two Sarawak goals, especially after a review on replays showed that at least one of the goals scored by Pedro was not offside at all.
When approached for comments, an official from the Sabah camp who wished not to be named agreed that the second disallowed goal was probably onside and the assistant referee may have got it wrong.
However, Sarawak Football Association (FAS) head coach Mohd Farhan Abdullah @ Anai Igang (Anai) refused to comment on the referee’s performance on Saturday but preferred to concentrate on the game.
He wasn’t too worried about the result as he believed that it is still at the early stages of the league and the new team still need time to find their momentum.
Anai noted that the Crocs gave Sabah too much space to manoeuvre and caused the two-goal blitz that sank the team on Saturday.
“Pedro was off position for both the goals and we paid dearly for it,” Anai observed
Meanwhile, Sabah FA’s strategy to keep Sarawak captain Bobby Gonzales at bay and mark Brazilian Pedro Henrique Dias De Amorim or Pedro paid dividends for the visitors.
Throughout the game, the visiting Rhinos had set out to ensure the two influential Sarawak players were shut out of the game.
It was obvious that whenever Bobby had the ball or was vying for the ball, two Sabah players were always around to stop him and in defence Pedro too was kept busy in a constant battle with Rodoljub Paunovi and Luka Milunovic.
“Obviously, Pedro wanted to help the team to get a goal back after the first goal but he was a bit distracted and was treading back from the front. The lapse in concentration caused Sabah to pounce again and quickly scored the second goal,” Anai said.
“We can also see that our team lacked the experience at this level of football. But I look at things positively and see it as a steep learning curve for the players so that we can progress in the league,” Anai added.
“We now focus all our efforts to win the next game so that we can collect our second three points and our focus will be to teach this young squad to bounce back as quickly as possible from disappointments,” said the Crocs coach.
Sarawak will next play UKM FC at Cheras Stadium on March 2 in their fifth game of the season.
