Bank veterans teach SAI boys hockey lesson

BoI, packed with several veterans, put their experience to good use when they overcame the youthful SAI lads. They defended in numbers and scored twice through counter-offensives and once through a penalty-corner.

SAI were all at sea when it came to prising the sandbagged BoI defence, in which full-backs Carlton Trinidade and captain Arthur Castellino stood out and goalkeeper Conan Fernandes chipped in with two good saves. Most of all, SAI ran out ideas when it came to converting penalty-corners and wasted nine of them.

Sanjay Fernandes gave the bankmen the lead mid-way through the first-half. He pushed home from agoal-mouth melee. Arthur made it 2-0 when he sounded the boards with a stiff hit following their lone first-half penalty-corner which came minutes before half-time.

In the second-half, SAI were still left with a lot of fight. They pressured the bankmen from the outset. But their individual thrusts, especially by Premkumar Singh, either petered out upon reaching the rival circle or resulted in abortive penalty-corners.

BoI centre-forward Stephen Malikal broke the back of the SAI resistance with a gem of a goal from a stray raid mid-way through the half. He neatly beat SAI goalkeeper Govind Sharma with a gentle tap from a zero angle on the right, after the goalkeeper had rushed out to challenge him.

In the earlier game, CRMD netted all their three field goals against GMP in the second-half. Javed Shaikh (2) and B D’Souza were the goal-getters.