The league is now getting right down to the wire and it is hard to see Khalsa faltering in the title race.
With only two matches left to play in the Hong Kong Hockey Association’s Premier League, Khalsa-A are still four points clear and just need to win one of their last two games to win the Championship.
Also, it should be noted that Khalsa has an insurmountable 28-goal-difference advantage over their nearest rival, HKFC-A (Hong Kong Football Club).
This coming weekend they play Pak-A, which will be no pushover, and then they face HKFC-A in the last game of the season. Khalsa faltered in their post-break match against HKFC-A last year, but based on current form it is unlikely that they will lose both of these matches, particularly at their home ground King’s Park.
On one hand, HKFC-A are currently equal second with Punjab – both are on 38-points, with HKFC leading with a 14-goal-difference advantage over Punjab. However, Club still have two difficult matches to play—Valley-A and that Khalsa-A clash.
Punjab-A, on the other hand, have a hard match against SSSC-A (Singh Sabha Sports Club) to play this coming weekend, but their final game against Club-B should not be so demanding. If Punjab-A win their match against SSSC-A they could well push Club-A into third place.
In the unlikely scenario that all three lose this weekend, Khalsa will all-but claim the title with one match still to go considering their goal-difference advantage.
HKFC-A vs SSSC-A
The match between HKFC-A and SSSC-A last Sunday (March 3) was hard-fought and a quite brutal contest at times, with fierce hitting and some intimidating behaviour, particularly from some of the SSSC players. However, green and yellow cards were issued to players of both sides.
Club-A moved the ball around well with good controlled penetrating play, but strong resistance was met on frequent occasions.
SSSC-A created several good chances throughout the match and put the ball in the goal twice in the first half, but both were disallowed.
Will Glover had a good chance in front of goal to open the scoring for Club-A, but just pushed the ball the wrong side of the post. HKFC-A opened their account through a well taken back stick shot by Tom Moore, eight minutes from half-time.
Jo Jo Wolff then added to Club’s total 18 minutes into the second period.
But SSC-A got a goal back through Navdeep Sharma with eight minutes of the match remaining and it was still anybody’s game. However, Yan Adams sealed the 3-1 win by deflecting a ball into the SSSC-A goal with four minutes left on the clock.
Other matches
Khalsa-A easily brushed aside KCC-A winning 7-2; Punjab-A beat Elite-A by the same 7-2 margin; and Pak-A won their match against Shaheen-A 5-2. The Valley-A vs HKFC-B match was rescheduled for Friday March 15.
