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The Haryana Steelers' have clinched a win in their first home match against the Gujarat Fortunegiants by 32-25.
Monu Goyat, in his debut as the Steelers' captain and playing his first match of the season, scored 7 raid points. He was supported well by the young Naveen who managed 5 touch points from his 11 raids.
Vikas Kandola, the star player for Haryana in the last match, struggled to find his groove and managed just a solitary point from his 13 attempted raids.
But the star for the Steelers' in today's match was their man-on-debut, the young all-rounder Kuldeep Singh. He was brought into the side to fill the huge vacuum left in the defence by the unfortunate injury to Surender Nada. And his performance on the evening would surely make Nada proud. He scored an astounding 7 tackle points on debut and had an excellent coordination with the right corner, Sunil (3 points).
The Fortunegiants, on the other hand, were let down by their lack of discipline and coordination in their defence.
The defence could manage just 9 tackle points out of which 5 points were courtesy their captain, Sunil Kumar. The left corner, C Kalai Arasan was given another start but failed to score a single tackle point for the second game in a row. Right corner, Ruturaj Koravi too gave a disappointing performance scoring just a single tackle point out of 4 attempted tackles.
They need to replace Kalai Arasan in the next match and bring in the experienced Hadi Oshtorak to man the left corner.
K Prapanjan was their top raider in the match with 9 points from 15 raids, and Sachin supported him well with his 6 raid points. They had brought in a third specialized raider, in the form of Mahendra Rajput to strengthen their attack, but Rajput failed to impact the game as he couldn't score a single point.
Prapanjan sustained an injury to his head during the course of the match, but the injury wasn't serious enough as he came back with treatment to continue his raiding duty.
What's next?
The Haryana Steelers would be next seen in action tomorrow evening against U Mumba, whereas the Gujarat Fortunegiants have a 5-day break before they take on the Puneri Paltan at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune on the 18th of October.
