Singapore's women floorballers avenge loss to Thais

The Singapore women's floorball team avenged last year's loss to Thailand with a closely fought 2-1 victory over their arch-rivals in the Asia-Oceania Floorball Cup at Our Tampines Hub last night.

In the process, hosts Singapore topped Group B and will head straight into tomorrow's semi-finals.

The last time the two teams met was at last year's Women's World Championship in Slovakia, where Singapore succumbed to a 6-5 defeat in the semi-finals of the placement round for 13th to 16th spots. Singapore eventually finished 16th.

On last night's result, team captain Amanda Yeap said: "It feels good to win, knowing that this puts us at the top of the table.

"Knowing that Thailand will come in strongly for the game, the team stuck with the game plan and worked together as a unit."

Thailand started the game on the front foot with a flurry of shots, forcing goalkeeper Fariza Begum to make a string of impressive saves to keep Singapore in the game.

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While the Thais continued to press hard for an opener, a combination of stubborn defending and wasteful finishing meant that the first period ended goalless.

The second period continued in similar fashion, with Singapore struggling to gain a foothold on the game.

But the hosts broke the deadlock in the eighth minute of the period against the run of play, with Michelle Lok sweeping the ball into the net to finish off a flowing counter-attack.

"Knowing that Thailand will come in strongly for the game, the team stuck with the game plan and worked together as a unit. Singapore women's floorball team captain Amanda Yeap

They then doubled their advantage two minutes into the third period after Debbie Poh found the corner of the net with a shot from range.

Thailand pulled one back four minutes later to set up a tense finish, but it was too little too late as the hosts kept their composure to see out the game.

The result made it three wins out of three for Singapore and qualifies them for the semi -finals of the first edition of the competition.

On the team's chances, team manager Norhayati Abdul Rahman said: "We didn't really think to go that far because we try to take each game at a time.

"It's a good result, but we'll just see what comes next."

In the semi-finals, Singapore will play either Malaysia or India at 7pm tomorrow, with the latter two facing off in the quarter-finals at 2.30pm today.

Admission is free.