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SINGAPORE: Tampines Rovers found their S.League title pursuit turning a little bit harder after Nazrul Ahmad Nazari denied them a win over the Young Lions at Tampines Stadium on Saturday evening.
The midfielder scored his third league goal of the season five minutes from time to snatch an unlikely 1-1 draw for the visitors.
Victory at home would have put the men in yellow four points ahead of their title rivals with six games remaining, and a lovely lob from captain Aliff Shafaein two minutes before the interval seemed enough to send his team well on their way.
But Nazrul's strike, apart from offering the Young Lions redemption for an otherwise incoherent display, kept the title race from turning into a potential Tampines procession.
Vorawan Chitavanich made just one change to the team that had started against Beijing Guoan three days ago, giving Shahdan Sulaiman his second home debut after recently returning from a 20-month stint with Home United.
The Young Lions meanwhile welcomed captain Hariss Harun back into the starting eleven, after the Nanyang Polytechnic student had withdrawn from the last game to hit the books in preparation for his examinations.
Hariss took just two minutes to get into the action, hastily clearing a pass threaded into the six-yard box by Stags winger Ismadi Mukhtar.
It was the start of a long spell of sustained pressure from the hosts, who were looking to grab the lead, and with the number of chances they were freely creating, Hariss and his teammates were made very nervous indeed.
Benoit Croissant headed Shahdan’s corner wide following the 19-year-old’s abovementioned clearance, and Imran Sahib missed a sitter on the edge of the six-yard box after Akihiro Nakamura had headed Shukor Zailan’s cross into the danger area.
The game was only six minutes old when all that happened, but the Young Lions were visibly unsettled at the back despite having Hariss to anchor the line.
Aleksandar Duric was not at the top of his game, too, although it did not help that he was closely watched by Hariss and Safuwan Baharudin.
Still, Duric and his teammates were showing more fluency and purpose in their game, as they moved swiftly for much of the first half and kept bringing the ball forward with seemingly little effort.
On 43 minutes, Tampines took the lead when Aliff scored with a perfectly-weighted lob which glided over Young Lions goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud and into the back of the net.
V. Sundramoorthy responded by withdrawing the ineffectual DCruz at half-time, as Khairul Nizam took his place up front.
Yet they could have found themselves two goals down within minutes of the restart, had Duric and Nakamura done better with their free kick a few yards outside the box.
The Young Lions gradually got a little better as the second half progressed but Tampines almost exploited the break in momentum when Aliff flick the ball across Izwan in search of Duric, but Hariss was present to bail his teammates out.
And Hariss could have put his name on the scoresheet on 79 minutes had he kept his cool while meeting Nizam’s flick into his path off a ball from the right.
That stirred Tampines after they had visibly slowed down in the second half, putting in some work up front without looking exceptionally eager for a game-killing second goal.
The approach backfired five minutes from time when Young Lions winger Eugene Luo was fouled and referee Sukhbir Singh played the advantage, allowing Nazrul to somehow get the ball and work his way past the Stags defence.
With only Hassan left to beat, Nazrul got his job done to ecstatic cheers from the Young Lions fans, but it all threatened to go awry in injury time when Seo Su Jong picked up two yellow cards in quick succession to leave the visitors a man down.
Vorawan's men could not take advantage, though – and that means they will need to put in a wee bit more work in the six games left to earn themselves the big prize.
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