Defending champions St. Joseph’s ‘A’, Mira Road retained their title defeating St. Joseph’s ‘B’, Juhu 3-2 in a pulsating Men’s Open final of the Willingdon Catholic Gymkhana organized Inter-Parish 5-a-side Rink Football Tournament – 2022 and played under floodlights at the gymkhana’s tennis courts.
The champions St. Joseph’s ‘A’, Mira Road players pose with the glittering winners’ trophy along with WCG Chairman Rawlin Pinto and Mrs Pinto during the prize distribution function.
For the champions Shravan Shetty, Aaron D’Costa and Deepak Pal scored a goal each on the counter to secure their second successive triumph. The Juhu side who produced a late fightback managed to score two quick goals through Dwight D’Abreo and Mahesh Kotkar.
The WCG Chairman Rawlin Pinto and his wife Mrs Pinto presented the Mira Road outfit, with the glittering winners’ trophy and the handsome winners’ cheque of Rs 70,000. The Juhu team received the runners-up trophy and a cheque of Rs 40,000.
The summit clash between the two St. Joseph outfits was a thrilling and exciting affair. The Mira Road team played with positive intent from the outset, while the Juhu team did not show much urgency for most of the match and that proved to be their undoing.
The Juhu team’s ball player Joywin Vasaikar held on to the ball for too long as a result they were unable to penetrate into the rival area and have an attempt at goal. Towards the end of the first session the Mira Road side cashed in on slip up by the rival in the midfield and immediately launched a quick counter-attack with Aaron tapping the ball across for Shravan to drive home the opening goal.
On resumption, the Juhu team continued in the same vein and they made a couple of more errors in the middle and the Mira Road youngsters punished them with two back-to-back goals in as many minutes. First Aaron intercepted a pass near the half line and did well to evade a tackle from a defender before flicking the ball into the net. Later, Deepak scored from a rebound to give his team a healthy 3-0 lead.
Stung by those setbacks the Juhu players changed tactics and started to play aggressively and they managed to score two goals through consistent scorer Dwight D’Abreo and Mahesh Kotkar, but they seemed to have left a little too late and had to finish as runners-up.
Results – Men’s Open (finals): St. Joseph’s ‘A’, Mira Road 3 (Shravan Shetty, Aaron D’Costa, Deepak Pal) beat St. Joseph’s ‘B’, Juhu 2 (Dwight D’Abreo, Mahesh Kotkar).