Arrows FC’s Nigerian acquisitions Morgan Justice and Arohi Zundu Joel impressed with a brace apiece in their 4-0 wallop of RPF in the St Joseph’s-CFA Senior Division League at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Thursday.
Consequently, Arrows had their best start to the league in a while. So conclusive were their domination that RPF posed negligible threat. There were chunky passages of play when they couldn’t even possess the ball, and when they did they conceded it all too meekly. It didn’t take Arrows, positive from the outset, more than the seventh minute to register their first goal. Justice calmly chested a through ball on the run from M Soosairaj to his left foot and powered it to the net. Though goalkeeper Akhil Soman lunged in the correct direction, Justice’s raw power was too much for Soman. His second goal was more spectacular. When Justice clung onto Soosairaj’s cross on the far right channel hardly anyone anticipated an attempt on goal, for Justice was at least 25 yards off the post and wasn’t in a conducive spot to pull the trigger. But Justice thought otherwise and unleashed a piledriver to the corner of the far post, which completely hoodwinked Soman, whose belated dive proved futile.
Almost immediately, RPF met their best chance of the match, but couldn’t force the desired result. C Muhammeel Hafeem slipped himself into a precocious one-on-one position with the goalkeeper, but he drifted wide off the post, from where his overdue shot struck the side-netting. That was as close as they got in either half.
Justice wasn’t over yet. Apart from troubling Soman on a couple of occasion, and shooting over on another instance, he fed compatriot Joel with a measured cross, and the latter ensured he headed it home from close range in the 64th minute. In the last minute of the regulation time, Joel completed his brace with a delectable chip over Soman. If the pair’s promise is any signifier, Arrows could bust their mid-table woes and seek a perch in the top four. Not only the Nigerians’ impact, but also the overall discpline and poise abodes well for Arrows. They were pacy on the flanks and organised in the middle. The defence was hardly ever tested either. Contrastingly, RFP need to rekindle the grit that bulwarked them last season.
Result: Arrows 4 (Justice 7, 28, Joel 64 and 90) bt RPF 0.