Udhagamangalam, March 17: Three second-half goals by Services warmed a chilly Wednesday afternoon at the Breeks Stadium and earned them an emphatic victory over Mizoram in a group A fixture of the Bharat Petroleum 55th Santosh Trophy Football Championship.The local boy Arockiya Nathan (48th), Saroj Gurung (55th) and Raghu Kumar (86th) struck for Services, a side made up mostly of the members of the Indian team which won the South Asian inter-army championship recently.``We could have won by a bigger margin,'' said an elated Services coach Prem Hiteshi. ``Though the marksmanship of the strikers showed little promise in the first-half, they did well in the second.''The Services' strength lay in their fine sense of organisation, in the second session in particular, and it seemed likely to carry them far against a bunch of opponents who considered the defensive duties reluctantly and only when forced to do so.The Services transported the ball more quickly and more intelligently in the midfield tocontain the short-statured Mizoram strikers in the air.Strangely, a spurned opportunity by Saroj Gurung apart, the opening quarter came and went without the relentless Services pressure, which even the Mizoram must have anticipated and feared.The weakest part of the Services game-plan was the slowness of their deep defenders, especially in clearances from the 18-yard zone.The crosses and passes that flew in from either side of the box were either messed up in the air or were gifted away to the rivals by aimless shooting by the Services defenders.This frequently caused havoc behind their deep defence, and also helped the Mizoram strikers squeeze themselves into the goal area thrice within the first 30 minutes.A well-delivered through pass by Nipenga achieved the first major breach in the Services cover, but as Laltanpuia ran on to the ball, he was thrown off balance by Anish Sharma's nudge. Laltanpuia followed it with two spectacular rising shots from the top of the box that stretched thegoalkeeper.Arokhiya Nathan, a native of Wellington near here, displayed fine sense of opportunism, pouncing on the ball after the rival stopper El Dy delayed surer control of it, and blasted it home without much fuss.The move was triggered off from the midfield by Irudyaraj, whose deep diagonal found an overlapping Anish Sharma unmarked at the extreme right. Sharma hooked the ball into the box, and Arokhiya Nathan did the rest.Seven minutes later, Saroj Gurung nodded home the second, off a Mani Thombi Singh cross from the left. The Mizoram defence which was outnumbered by their rivals, failed miserably in blocking Gurung's route into the box. Raghu Kumar, who replaced Gurung soon after the goal, slammed in an Arokhiya Nathan pass from the close for the third goal.Mizoram's best chance to strike came in the 67th when Nipenga, after dribbling his way past the entire Services defence and the goalkeeper, smacked his power-packed volley against the crosspiece.UP will meet Jammu & Kashmir onThursday.
