In the I-League 2009-10 Second Division being held at the KSFA Stadium, Bengaluru, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Travancore Titanium played out a largely dull draw in the Group A.
The home team HAL had three good chances to take the lead against the Thiruvananthapuram District Super Division champions. The first two efforts were off the target and Satish Kumar Jr.'s kick that was destined for the back of the net was cleared off the line by Tinto Justin.
In the 32nd minute, HAL again had a golden opportunity to go one goal up but Titanium custodian Joby Joseph, who took the place of the injured KT Navas under the bar, reacted quickly and cleared the ball from the danger. Joby again came to his team's rescue couple of minutes later as he produced a one-on-one save of Satish Kumar Jr.
Rest of the first half didn't see much action as the ball rolled at the middle of the park. Titanium and HAL began the second half defensively as they tried to keep the possession of the ball and cared less to attack the opposition's goal.
The first and only clear chance of the second half for Titanium came in the 72nd minute when a good move from the Titanium attackers was not able to be finished off by Sugun Kumar. Diljith stole the ball from HAL striker Xavier Vijaya Kumar and gave a long pass to Abdul Hameed. Hameed laid the ball to Sugun to shoot, but his shot whistled inches past the post.
The game only got busy in the last ten minutes as HAL tried to score a goal that would win the match for them, but Titanium replied by clearing HAL's attacks. HAL put the ball past the goal line into the net in the 83rd minute, but the referee ruled out the goal for offside.
This was HAL's second successive draw in the Group A after they were held to a draw by Chandni FC too. HAL has now one win and 2 draws from 3 points while Titanium scored their first points from two matches.
Chandni FC and Golden Threads will feature in tomorrow's only match. There will be live commentary of the match from 04:00 PM exclusively on FootballKerala.
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Friday 2 April 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.