Club Sounds Sirens as Cummings Bags Five

HONG KONG—Hong Kong Football Club-A sent out an ominous warning to their rivals when they tore apart Dutch-A 8-1 at their Sports Road home pitch on Saturday (Sept 27).

Leading the rout was Club’s prolific scorer Leigh Cummings as she nabbed a hat-trick on her way to collect five goals for her team over a Dutch side playing in their second season in the Premiership.

It was Club’s opening game to the new season while Dutch were playing their second match after beating HKFC B last weekend on a 4-2 result, but the senior side avenged their juniors with a resounding game as they were easily the fitter of the two sides as was demonstrated by their slick passing game and domination of ball possession.

Dutch skipper Saskia Bensdorp had to concede they had lost to a superior side from the first whistle.

“Club were the fitter side,” said Bensdorp. “They have more teams and I’m sure they play and train more in the off season.”

Bensdorp said that by the way Club played, and the enthusiasm shown to the Dutch, they can expect more hard times to head this way this season, after finishing second from the bottom last season, but that she hoped they could improve on that result despite having some of their players holding their own with their trademark Dutch dribbling skills.

But it was more tack and finesse, and the finishing touches that Dutch lacked that saw Club walk away with the full three points that gave the Dutch goalkeeper Bobbi Kearney litte respite as she conceded the bombardment in only her fourth season between the posts.

“Bobbi did a good job considering she never really trained as a goalkeeper,” added Bensdorp, who was beaten to the Dutch’s solitary goal when team-mate Valerie Kerstholt managed to get a final touch to the goalward shot.

With only six teams playing in the Premier League this season, Club, who were three-peaters having won the title from 2009-13 including the Holland Cup for a league double last season, Club are hoping for a repeat performance this term in the three-way round robin format.

“We are eager to score more goals as last year it was a bit of a challenge,” said HKFC captain Patricia Chiu, who held sway as the lone sweeper in defense.

However, Club’s goalkeeper Katherine Nagengast had little in terms of a workout as she was hardly pressed with the exception of the lone goal and a few penalty-corners, which somehow fizzled out due to their solid defense and some woeful Dutch marksmanship.

It took Club six minutes before sounding the boards through Cummings from a penalty conversion, who scored from some loose marking inside the circle as she extended their lead two minutes later.

Christie Davidson added a third to put the game beyond the Dutch who by then were trying hard to play catch up, but by then the damage had already been done as a brace of goals from Emily Brosnan, and then Cummings scoring to complete her hat-trick.

While further goals from Barbara Mountains and two more from Cummings completed Dutch’s nightmare outing.

Premier League matches will resume on 11th October with a full roster:

Eddie So is a freelance photographer and reporter with more than 25 years of journalism experience in Hong Kong.