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SCMP Reporter

POLAND'S pride was restored last night when they beat Hong Kong 1-0 in the Carlsberg Cup third-place play-off at the Hong Kong Stadium.

 The Eastern European side were left red-faced on Monday when they were beaten 5-0 by Japan at the same venue.

 Last night's victory was their new coach Wladyslaw Stachurski's first since joining the national side recently.

  But Stachurski said the match against the local side was a tough one.

  'It was a very hard game for us, especially in the second half. Hong Kong were strong,' Stachurski said.

  'Our performance during the match was not consistent.

  'Sometimes we played better than we did in the first match against Japan but at other times we played very badly.'  Poland sealed their victory in the first half with a 28th-minute goal by striker Mariusz Srutwa.

  Srutwa slotted home the goal from just to the right of the goal after latching on to a short pass by his strike partner Sylwester Czereszewski.

 Hong Kong came back quickly after the interval but luck was not on the local boys' side as a few chances hit the crossbar or just flew over the top.

 South China right-winger Lee Kin-wo and Golden's Scottish forward Lee Bullen missed two great chances within four minutes.

 Lee's header in front of the goal from a Pedro Xavier cross flew just over the crossbar.

 Xavier created another chance for the local side four minutes later.

  His corner from the right was nodded by his South China teammate Aurelio Da Silva and bounced up in front of the goal but Bullen's header hit the crossbar.

 Hong Kong coach Tony Sealy was delighted with the territory's performance.

 'At no stage were we underdogs. We were facing one of the strongest national sides in the world,' said the Club player.

 'But we played very well, especially in the second half.

  'We could have made history if we had not missed a few potentially lethal chances.

 'As the coach, I could ask no more than that. The Hong Kong crowd should be pleased by our efforts.' Teams Poland: Andrzej Wozniak; Waldemar Jaskulski, Kazimierz Wegrzyn, Pawel Wojtala, , Pawel Skrzypek (Radoslaw Kaluzny 81); Zbigniew Wyciszkiewicz, Dariusz Gesior, Ryszard Czerwiec, Marek Citko (Grzegorz Kaliciak 62); Sylwester Czereszewski, Mariusz Srutwa (Lenart Tomasz 88).

Hong Kong League XI: Felix Golindano; Paul Masefield (Dimitri Kalkanov 86), Aurelio Da Silva, Mike Duxbury, Ricky Cheng; Lee Kin-wo, Tim O'Shea, Pedro Xavier, Ross Greer (Collins Udeh 82); Lee Bullen, Paul Foster (Wu Qunli 61).



Inconsistent Poles win back some pride