S.League

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A moment of brilliance from 2015 S.League Player of the Year Fumiya Kogure was enough to help surprise package Hougang United to a 1-0 upset of Warriors FC at the Choa Chu Kang Stadium on Thursday night.

The Cheetahs took an early lead through a long-range stunner from the Japanese playmaker, before surviving a late onslaught from the home team -- who rocked the crossbar twice -- to seal the three points.

Buoyed by last week's 3-1 comeback win against Geylang International, Hougang started off the more assured side, and duly opened the scoring after 18 minutes.

Kogure collected captain Jozef Kaplan's cutback from the left, sized up his options before unleashing a raking shot from 25 yards that had Warriors goalkeeper Yazid Yasin beaten from start to finish.

"I'm not surprised because he always does that in training," commented Kaplan, who enjoyed a full view of the strike.

"He has good technique. Once he received my pass, he took the ball and shot into the top corner. It was a beautiful goal."

The Cheetahs nearly doubled the lead just four minutes later when right-back Nazrul Nazari went on the overlap and squared a brilliant ball across the box, but Stipe Plazibat got his connection all wrong from eight yards out.

The Warriors finally got their act together towards the end of the first half, but Jonathan Behe was unable to direct his header from Nikola Rak's corner on target.

Jorg Steinebrunner's side carried that momentum into the second half, with Rak seeing his 35-yard free kick crash off the top of the bar on 59 minutes.

The Warriors continued to probe and should have levelled matters in the 71st minute through substitute Ignatius Ang.

Within two minutes of coming for Syaqir Sulaiman, the 24-year-old found himself in the clear via a neat cutback by Zulfadli Zainal Abidin, but saw his resulting shot denied on the goal line by Plazibat.

Ang was at it again two minutes before the end when he got to the end of a brilliant left-wing cross from Zulfadli, but his header crashed agonisingly off the bar with Hougang custodian Khairulhin Khalid already beaten.

Time soon ran out for the luckless Warriors as they failed to pick up a win for the fifth time in seven matches.

On the other hand, that was Hougang's fifth win in eight matches, which helped them leapfrog Albirex Niigata (S) and Tampines Rovers -- who face off on Saturday night -- and go top of the table.

The Cheetahs will remain in the top two at the end of this week regardless of the result of the Albirex vs. Tampines clash, but Kaplan is refusing to get carried away by the good start.

"The season is not finished; I keep telling my guys that this is only one part of the season," said the 30-year-old Slovakian.

"Now we're top, I'm sure everyone wants to challenge us so we have to work even harder to maintain at this position."

Warriors FC: Yazid Yasin (GK), Poh Yifeng, Madhu Mohana, Kento Fukuda, Zulfadli Zainal Abidin (C), Emmeric Ong (Ridhuan Muhammad 84'), Syaqir Sulaiman (Ignatius Ang 69'), Hafiz Nor, Nikola Rak, Hafiz Rahim, Jonathan Behe

Hougang United: Khairulhin Khalid (GK), Nazrul Nazari, Yusiskandar Yusop, M. Anumanthan, Faiz Salleh, Fairoz Hasan (Afiq Noor 73'), Raihan Rahman, Nurhilmi Jasni (Iqbal Hussain 85'), Fumiya Kogure (Huzaifah Aziz 90'), Stipe Plazibat, Jozef Kaplan (C)