ESPNFC

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Albirex Niigata (S) inflicted a first defeat of the 2016 S.League season on Tampines Rovers on Saturday evening after recording a 1-0 victory at Jurong East Stadium.

The loss came despite glamour club Tampines starting their three biggest attacking stars in Jermaine Pennant, Billy Mehmet and Jordan Webb against the reigning Singapore Cup champions.

Following a goalless first half, the breakthrough arrived in the 70th minute when substitute Tatsuro Inui converted a penalty after a foul by Fahrudin Mustafic.

The result was enough to send the White Swans top of the table with one third of the campaign completed to keep them on course in their title chase. However, they were certainly made to work for the win against a Tampines side who showed plenty of endeavour, but were let down by some poor finishing in front of goal.

It was Albirex who made the brighter start with Atsushi Kawata heading Kento Nagasaki's free-kick inches wide in the 15th minute. Three minutes later, Stags keeper Joey Sim had to rush off his line to deny Daichi Ishiyama a clear chance.

The visitors then threatened three minutes after the half-hour mark with Shakir Hamzah forcing Yosuke Nozawa into a save. Just when it looked like ex-Sarawak striker Mehmet would capitalise on the rebound, Kento Fujihara made a superb block to rescue the Japanese outfit.

Two minutes before the break, the hosts were unlucky not to finally break the deadlock. Masaya Jitozono's 30-yard piledriver had Sim beaten all ends up, only for it to come back off the post.

But in the 69th minute, they were presented with the perfect opportunity when Mustafic dragged down Atsushi Shirota inside the box to concede a penalty, paving the way for Inui to open the scoring from 12 yards.

Ten minutes from time, the visitors had a glorious chance to equalise when Pennant picked out substitute Fazrul Nawaz with a neat square pass. But the Singapore international somehow fired over from two yards out.

There was one final hope for the Stags to force the draw and, this time, Fazrul did put the ball into the back of the net after Nozawa had parried Afiq Yunos's powerful shot into his path. But the assistant referee's flag came to Albirex's rescue as the shot was ruled out for offside, condemning the visitors to their first domestic defeat.

Struggling to hide his disappointment at the final whistle, Tampines coach V. Sundramoorthy said: "We would have loved to continue to be unbeaten and I believe we could have gotten something from today.

"We've now conceded three penalties in our past two games and it's a bit hard to take for us, but we can't do much but look forward to the next game.

"If we played badly and lost then I can accept it, but I thought we played well and the boys gave everything, so it's sad for us to lose this way."

Meanwhile, Albirex coach Naoki Naruo refused to get carried away, despite his side leading the table at the first milestone of the campaign.

"I wouldn't say if we're on track to winning the title but so far we've had good results for the first round," said the Japanese tactician.

"I think our players used the experience they gained from the previous seven games tonight in order to put up a good performance against Tampines, and I'm happy with a very good performance today."

Albirex Niigata (S): Yosuke Nozawa, Mikiya Yamada (Kazuki Mine 82'), Atsushi Shirota, Kento Fujihara, Atsushi Kawata, Shuto Inaba, Masaya Jitozono, Naofumi Tanaka, Kento Nagasaki, Daichi Ishiyama (Tatsuro Inui 60'), Rui Kumada (Tomoki Menda 60').

Tampines Rovers: Joey Sim, Ismadi Mukhtar (Christopher van Huizen 82'), Fahrudin Mustafic, Afiq Yunos, Shakir Hamzah, Yasir Hanapi (Sufian Anuar 88'), Izzdin Shafiq, Shahdan Sulaiman, Jermaine Pennant, Jordan Webb, Billy Mehmet (Fazrul Nawaz 46').