SINGAPORE – They impressed with a confident and dominating display in their goalless draw against Malaysia on Friday, but on Tuesday night (Oct 11) at the Mong Kok Stadium, the Lions were brought back down to earth as they crashed 0-2 to Hong Kong.

National coach V.Sundramoorthy had said ahead of the friendly that he would give opportunities to those who did not feature against their Causeway rivals.

And the 51-year-old kept his word, making six changes to his team as he handed starts to the likes of debutant Irfan Fandi, Iqbal Hussain and M. Anumanthan.

The changes did not seem to affect the Lions’ rhythm as they started the game brightly and pressed the hosts high up the pitch. Sundram’s charges however, were unable to capitalise on their early dominance and failed to pose a real threat to the Hong Kong goal.

Indeed, the closest Singapore came to scoring in the first-half was when Khairul Amri’s 18th-minute curling corner-kick almost caught out Hong Kong goalkeeper Yapp Hung Fai, who had to scramble to punch the ball to safety.

Hong Kong, however, grew into the game as the half wore on, and only a last-ditch save by Singapore custodian Izwan Mahbud prevented Alex Akande from opening the scoring in the 34th minute.

But Akande was not to be denied eight minutes later, as he latched onto a through ball and calmly slotted past Izwan to give his team a 1-0 lead heading into the break.

The second half proved to be a much tighter affair, with much of the battle being fought in the middle of the pitch.

But just when it seemed like the Lions were getting a foothold in the game, Hong Kong doubled their advantage in the 70th minute with Huang Yang rifling the ball into the net after being teed up by Akande.

With full-time looming, Singapore began pouring forward as they tried to mount an unlikely comeback.

But apart from Yasir Hanapi’s snapshot in stoppage time which went just narrowly wide, the visitors did not seem likely to score, as Singapore’s fourth defeat in their last five games left Sundram with more questions to be answered ahead of next month’s Suzuki Cup tournament.