Dateline 11^th June 2016

 NRFC 1 Pattaya United 0

The Rockin’ Dolphins from Pattaya were the visitors today with The Swatcats looking for a rare victory to enable them to improve their precarious position near the foot of the table. The match also was Milos Joksic’s first league game in charge.

The match began in front of a very sparse crowd – possibly fewer than 4000 I would guess – sad times indeed for a club famed in the recent past for its huge fan base. How pitiful the near empty 80^th Anniversary Stadium looked tonight.

The Swatcats began on the front foot and put together some decent attacking moves with Tagbajumi looking lively and in the 13^th minute after some smart work from Adeyeah, Chanatphon slid in the first goal for the home team.

For the first 30 minutes, Pattaya did not show much ambition up front and seemed content to soak up the home team’s pressure. In the 33^rd minute a guilt edged chance was missed by the hosts as a close range header from a corner was miss timed and in the resulting melee a close range shot went wide. The Dolphins then countered with a drive going narrowly wide.

The second half started with Pattaya showing more attack minded intent but following a break by the home team a free kick was smartly saved by the visitor’s keeper and minutes later Adeyeah shot over from 8 yards.

A promising break by the Dolphins in the 60^th minute ended with some brave goalkeeping by the home keeper as he came out to smother the resulting shot and in the 63^rd minute Pralong Sawandee was sent off following a second yellow card after a silly and innocuous challenge on the keeper.

Pattaya were beginning to get a foothold in the match and one wonders why they only started playing at half time. The hosts seemed to tire and were losing their grip on midfield resulting in pressure being exerted on their defence. Despite this pressure the Swatcats held on to their one goal lead and earned a valuable victory.

A much needed 3 points tonight. The Swatcats looked a decent side tonight – especially in the first half. The midfield seemed more effective and provided more for the frontmen to get their teeth into. I still maintain that Tagbajumi and Adeyeah could form a successful partnership but as yet they have failed to be convincing. We did not miss Bjorn Lindemann (who incidentally was not even named as a substitute tonight).

Against a poor Pattaya team the defence looked OK too. On balance a useful start for Milos Joksic but against stronger teams we will continue to struggle. If we can put away lower echelon teams we should just about survive – and to me, given our poor start that would represent a satisfactory conclusion to the season.