Roopali secure Super berth

With Roopali’s relying on short quick passes, the cops survived a close call on the quarter of the hour. Medio S Pathan moving into the opposition’s half, did well to put Bapu Raikar in the clear, leaving defender Raju Budhan wanting. Bapu, controlling well had his feeble try blocked by ‘keeper Sanjay Chougule. However, with the custodian failing to collect cleanly, Santosh who lurked inside the box almost did the cops in, but was denied by a Sanjay’s quick reflexes, which ended up in a clean collection.

The cops took time in their build-ups, but ran out of ideas just ahead of the box. One such move that went as described, was when Milind Kadam moving down the left-flank managed to put Sanjay Chorge in possession. However, Milind who was caught in two minds, released a half-hearted left-footer into the ‘keeper Anup Jadhav’s hands.

At the stroke of half-time, the cops were reduced to 10-men when Vishwas Godse was asked to cool his heals, after he was pulled up for unnecessarily charging at Balchandra Bhosle, by referee Ashokan N.

Playing with a man short after lemon-time, Roopali did well to exploit the handicap with repeated forays. A first-time passing sequence by Sunil Bakre, Santosh Joshi, on the left caught defenders Raju B and Pravin Ghadge on the wrong foot, however what should of been aa clean finish by Moshin Khan, finished way over the bar.

The move that followed was worse, in terms of final finish. Ashwin Mancharkar chipping well found Santosh, with just the keeper to confront, fail to put in that extra-effort, and fell short to let the ‘keeper clear to safety.

The cops defence seemed pressured, as Roopali thereafter almost took the lead. Sameer Bhagwat combining with Santosh beat defenders Asim Aditya and Uttam Kadam, but Santosh’s haste in taking a first-timed nullified the move, with the keeper crouching low to the Santosh’s left-footer.

With all the action at the cops goal, the cops did have their luck deny them on two counts. The first when substitute Alex D’Souza’s pile-driver was acrobatically saved by the custodian who later did well to tip out a 25-yard free-kick taken by Aditya.

Roopali having been let-down twice by Santosh finally struck owing to a defensive lapse. Sameer Bhagwat curling in the ball from the left, had the entire defence napping leaving Santosh, who raan in from the right, with a second angle placement, to which he made no mistake.

THUNDERCATZ, OBA WIN: In other matches, Thundercatz hung on to a 23rd minute strike by Sudhir Dalmeida to shock fancied Range Hills Young Boys to register their second win and take their points tally to nine. RHYB, hand shocked Roopali earlier have 11 points to their credit.

Old Boys Association on the other hand handed St. Joseph’s Youth Club their seventh defeat, with a 2-1 win. Brenton Antao and Alfred Rodrigues struck in either half for OBA, after JYC were surprise leaders off a Joe Anand strike.