3SC turn draws specialist

It was another disappointing home draw for the Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) against visiting Plateau United of Jos in a week 12 fixture of the Nigerian Premier Football league, (NPFL).

This is coming after the last home draw against Remo Stars and fans had expected the hosts to win and consolidate on its last away point in far away Calabar with Enyimba FC.

Alas, it was not as expected as Shooting Stars had to fight back from a goal deficit to share the spoils with Plateau United who actually came with a game plan to frustrate their hosts with their time wasting antics.

Right from the blast of the whistle, it was a cagey affair with the attacking trio of returnee Ajani Ibrahim, Sunday Faleye and Afolabi Waheed tormenting Plateau defence with deft touch- passes and good ball works but the visitors absorbed the pressure.

On their part was a solid defence, capped with agile goalkeeper, ex-home boy, Dele Ajiboye, midfield and two pronged attack line with another ex-boy Kabir Umar readily on occasional counter moves.

As such, it was also an even run with most of the fight in the midfield where the likes of Ibrahim Adebayo Shile, Abayomi Adebayo and Lekan Bola reigned supreme but with no clear cutting edge.

This was the situation until few minutes in to the added time when Ibeh Johnson headed in a throw-in at the death to silence the vociferous home fans; leaving the hosts to trail 0-1 at half time.

However, Plateau United players upped their time wasting tactics when the play resumed for the second half, this by falling at will but not with occasional warning by the referee.

Before then, Coach Fatai Amoo had removed injured Afolabi Waheed for Nonso Mbakwe and to make it more effective Bode Daniel had to come in for tired Lekan Bola and on his first touch got a penalty advantage.

The ball was lobbed into the 18 yard box and Bode was roughly fouled in an attempt to connect and the referee pointed to the spot. This, Plateau United players protested with Kenney Boboye calling his wards out, which brought the game to a halt momentarily.

This time wasting prompted the ref to book Ajiboye with a yellow card before he was beaten neatly to his right by Abayomi Adebayo who converted it to even the score 1-1.

From then on, it was one feigned fall to another by the Plateau United players from any angle on the pitch, time was ticking and the home crowd was getting bored with this negative play.

Not only this, in an effort to continue their antics, Coach Kennedy Boboye pounced on an home official, Rasheed Balogun who had gone to the Match Commissioner to call for an observation.

As such, the game was temporarily stopped for normalcy to return after about seven minutes stoppage and the effect of this ugly antic was permeating until the final whistle which confirmed another two points loss for the Shooting Stars.

By the result, the Oluyole Warriors only moved slightly to 17 position from 19 with 11 points from 11 games, despite the outstanding game against Rangers.