Round 5: 6-pack vs Wanderers Men

9th Sept, 1.00pm, Turf City

Round 5 Match:

Score: 16-3

Playa of the Day: TaufiQ, for his teamplay involvements

Dick of the Day: Wanderers for turning up with 7 players

This is the game which totally changed everything. It injects a lot of self-confidence in 6-pack (apparent in Bedok's trashing 19-1), changed the rankings of the table for the 1st time in NTL and rewrites NTL history to be the 1st local team to trash Wanderers' Mens (16-3).

The message could not be delivered any clearer to the key players of Wanderers, who opted to play Frisbee instead of roughing it out against the Real Men like 6-pack. It could very well be a pyschological tactic which Wanderers adopted to instill some overconfidence & complacency,... hoping to hinder 6-pack from getting motivated to improve (or going down for more trainings). Instead it just backfires as 6-packians are a bunch of intelligent ruggers with insatiable thirst for perfection. NTL domination is just a tiny part of the plan as the bigger picture will be painted cometh January 2007 in World Cup South Africa. Furthermore, 16-3 scoreline was something that Wanderers Men's have to take back home and lose sleep over.

More of that later....

The game itself started at furious pace...the quick dump by Adam & scoop by David topped with a Backdoor by Leander created a favourable 3 vs 2 situation with Yum supporting at the wing ....plus a quick hands at a pace which would put Asafa Powell proud ....it seemed inevitable that the 1st Try will be scored... Alas!! ... A miss-pass

There is no denying the 1st Try though as it came on the 1st minute & 15th second after a quick thinking & scoop by Adam....creating another 3 vs 2 situation .... a pass to Alan simplified it to 2 v 1 ... and with Xiangjunn sprinting and screaming down the Touch line... the grounding of the ball gave the crowd something to scream about

Not wanting to be outdone, the Amila-Sujan-Jitwei-Taufiq-Hadi-Jielun pack showed a dizzying and brilliant display of hands as they weaved and moved the ball around from the half-way line, wrecking Wanderers' defence in the process and risking it a bit close to a "Touch pass" at times....The final pass from Jit sent Amila diving at the Try-line for the 2nd try (@ 4th minute). If i had a boombox at that point of time, a befitting soundtrack song would be "Mas que Nada" ala Brazil Nike Team ad. Beatifully crafted Try

Reputation and pride hanging by a thread, Wanderers did attempt to make a comeback....their familiar free-flowing dumping play, multiple options off the Dump and confusing backdoors + overlaps gave 6-pack a hard time at Defence. Their trademark shooting defence did trouble us however it did not stop us for scoring, it merely delayed it.

Wanderers did snatch a Try back in the 4th minute 51 secs after an unnecessary backchatting by David "emotional" Teo, the penalty allowed them to take a quick tap and dived at the line to keep their hopes alive (2-1)

Yum & Xiangjunn then answered right back at the 6th minute 10 secs with a quick-thinking by Yum at the 5-metre split, skipping the pass straight to perfectly positioned Xiangjunn at the wing for his 2nd try and 6-pack's 3rd.

At this point of time, Wanderers' spirit to fight was slowly diminishing as they let themselves down with countless of errors....drop balls, off-the-mark, drop balls, fumble dumps and more drop balls. It did not helped as well that they only have 1 substitution at their disposal. A rough day indeed....if we can see their thinking bubbles at that time...it would read as "damn those frisbee guys"

6-pack's 4th try: Amila directed Hadi to dump. Amila then did his trademark quick scoop to confuse the defender creating a 3 vs 1 situation and which was converted by Jielun (7th mins 49 secs). Taufiq seemed happy as he was screaming away "Awesome !! Awesome!!"

Is this no. 5 ??

No...It was forward-pass....Such was 6-pack play sometimes....Plenty of opportunities but disappointing finish at times

No. 5 comes from a Quick-dump by Jitwei, a scoop by Taufiq and a backdoor by Amila.... Taufiq passed to Jit ...but Jit "lobang" it to Amila who plucked it off the air and scored it (@ 11th mins & 2nd secs)

No. 6: From an open play, Taufiq beautifully noticed the extra man (Yum) at the wing, he drew the defence in and timed his pass to perfection. Yum dived at the tryline which by now we intimately called "Home" (14th mins & 20 secs)....Brutal...brutal....

No 7: From an open play again, His deceptive burst and occasional boost from his fart helped The Longtong to cut through between 2 defenders and gassed a poor Wanderers till he passed out (17th mins 21 secs)... Perhaps at this moment, the soundtrack has changed to Michael Bubble's "I wanna go Hooomeee" ...literally for Wanderers and metaphorically for 6-pack...

No 8: Quick Dump by Sujan...Quick Scoop and a long run across by Taufiq to draw the Defence sideways to the right....A switch with Hadi to change the direction of running left... The Defence (just like SRC training venue) was all over the place and a gap in Wanderers' defence allowed Hadi through with ease(20th minute)

*Half-time whistle*

Recharged and Refreshed, Wanderers made another attempt at the line... sending their Jap player a Kamikaze dive at 6-pack's tryline....Luckily, the collaboration between Alan and Yum kept the Tries at bay. However, such collaboration between Alan & any guy players on the field usually resulted in an intimate moments (pls see Mixed Finals report)...

No 9: It's the Usual familiar sight. A loop by Xiangjunn to shift the Defence. A sick sidestep from "Stud"...an unfavourable situation for Wanderers....A gap....An exploitation.... The inevitable...(21st mins 19th secs)

From then...6-pack showed a brilliant display of defending with bodies flying all over the field. Sri-Lankan airborne 11 leading the pack....

soon...Taufiq follow suit....

...and Kenny too...(the dive was not as glam as the rest)

No 10: The Gideon's......a Quick Dump by Jielun...a Quick Scoop by Adam...a very very long sprint by him as Dummy Half towards the Try-line....eliminating the slow Defenders one-by-one by natural selection of fitness & speed...Unfortunately, It was at this time 6-pack incurred its first casuality as Gideon was taken out by a desperate Wanderers Hatchet man (24th mins 06 secs)

No 11: The Original Scooper.....a Quick Dump by Alan...a Quick Scoop by Amila...beating his opposite marker as Dummy Half .... finding an open Taufiq (25th mins 24th secs)

Hadi brooke through as Dummy Half and just need to find an open man to score the Try....Guess who came supporting him?
If a picture paints a thousand words... then those were a lot of hints ....Good support though...

No 12: Kenny's rare sprint...from an open play, Kenny beat the Wanderers Defender one on one... it was a rare sight to see Kenny switched on his "NOS" as u can see from the picture (mind you the dust was not added, his burst was real) (28th mins 20th secs)

No 13: Wanderers are super shacked out...they really do not have any gas left in their tank...as we drove up the field...by the time we reached their tryline, they were left with 4 defenders against the 6 of us...a simple split right between Alan & Taufiq chalked the 13th try (30th mins 29th secs). There was a slight argy-bargy going on while Taufiq was scoring the 13th Try. Warning: Some pictures below may be disturbing. May not be suitable for immature readers.

No 14: Generous Adam... from an open play... Adam just sprinted through to the Try-line.. None of the Wanderers bothered anymore ..it does not make any difference... Adam generously distributed the ball to David to add to his collections (34th mins 28th secs)

Something to think about our Defence...Many of times, we were caught off-guard because of our teammate's bad calls. We were told to mark the wrong defenders and thus the opponents have extra man to score. Below is a perfect example where Taufiq was told to "touch" the wrong attacker and there is an extra man beside Taufiq....The Defence was too lazy to help Taufiq out as well...Taufiq's immediate defending teammates beside him were miles away..... so please remember to compact the Defence and only help when necessary (note: The big guy scored at 35th mins & 13th secs)

No 15: Merciless 6-pack...it's an answer straight from tap-off....Quick dump by Xiangjunn ...Quick scoop by Alan... Back to Xiangjunn....15th of the match.. cruel indeed(35th mins 56th secs)

No 16: By this time, It was getting boooring...same thing..same moves...Dump by David...Scoop by Adam...Support in numbers ...Amila brought home no. 16 ...Good play & support though, guys!(37th mins 28 secs)

Another Defensive lapses.... at other times, our teammate's calls are right but we just don't listen. For example, Jielun below kept calling to Yum that the ball carrier (which is also the Dummy Half) is his man. Yum ignored Jielun's call/trust and decided to help him instead by leaving his winger a bit of space. Big mistake..the big guy took the pass and converted it to Wanderers' try no. 3. It was another simple simple defending mistakes on 6-pack's part.

If you got bored from reading this report, pls blame ourselves coz there is not much variations in our moves & attack throughout the game. Almost all of our tries came in from a very simple play of dump & scoop or playa decided to run off themselves in the open play. If we do not keep on adding our attacking arsenals (the moves, etc) and be complacent with our dump & scoop, Wanderers will be waiting for us to turn it over when we play them. (as a matter of fact, we do not even have to wait till 14th Oct. Bucks already tested us when we decided to play as an individual, not a team)

Let's see less of the defending mistakes and more of the attacking brilliance come 14th October.
Less nerves and more calm yet deadly Team 6-pack's plays

Nevertheless....

16-3

...still an awesome result