Too hot to handle

SINGAPORE — Samoa’s twin attack proved too hot to handle for Singapore as the Republic bowed to their higher-ranked opponents 53-47 for their first loss of the 2014 Nations Cup.

Samoa’s goal-attack Kendra Falefitu scored 29 goals with a 85 per cent accuracy and 1.92m-tall goal-shooter Monica Fuimaono also posed problems for the hosts, scoring 24 goals with an 89 per cent shot accuracy.

With both teams coming into the match after three straight wins, yesterday’s encounter at the OCBC Arena was seen as a dress rehearsal for Saturday’s final.

Victory for Samoa meant the team ranked 14th in the world are already assured of a place in the title-decider. Singapore, meanwhile, have to beat Malaysia in their final group game on Friday to set up the rematch.

After despatching two higher-ranked opponents earlier in the week, Singapore were expected to put up a good fight, and they did, even outscoring their opponents in the third quarter (13-8).

Singapore goalkeeper Premila Hirubalan said: “It’s actually not a bad defeat. It was very close and every quarter, we fought back. But Monica is tough to play against because she is mobile, big and very tall. We need to go back to the drawing board to see how to handle her better on Saturday.”

But while her side lost to the tournament’s top team, Singapore coach Ruth Aitken was pleased with her team’s performance.

“It was the hardest game that we have played, but I thought we fought really hard and we need to get better in terms of ball speed and moving them faster,” said Aitken.

“It was a challenge for our shooters with the tall defenders, but they just need confidence to put the ball out because they are great shooters.

“We need to finish Friday’s game well because Malaysia have been playing well. To score 47 is probably one of our best scores for the week and to do that against the best team is really good. As a coach, I took a lot of positives out of it.”

Samoa’s assistant coach Henry Tunupopo was not surprised at the fight Singapore put up.

“They have a New Zealand coach and just won the Asian Championships. They had quite a bit of preparation so we were anticipating this to be a really tough game,” he said.

Ahead of Friday’s game against Malaysia, Singapore goal-shooter Charmaine Soh will be looking to improve on her 76 per cent shot accuracy against Samoa.

“It was good that (Chen) Huifen, my co-shooter took over as goal shooter in the second quarter and I played a goal attack role,” said Soh. “That’s how we kept the score going. But looking ahead, I need to improve on my shots and space awareness in the goal circle with my co-shooter.”

Other results:

Papua New Guinea 56 Ireland 35

Botswana 51 Malaysia 36

Friday’s matches:

3pm Botswana vs Papua New Guinea

5pm Samoa vs Ireland

7pm Singapore vs Malaysia