CHENNAI, August 1: Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) Juniors Eleven is just one match away from a dream win. Their purple patch continued announcing their superiority in no uncertain terms, a 3-0 verdict over Tamil Nadu Eleven, a just reflection of their superiority. With 10 points from their group matches, IHF took the top spot in the MCC-Murugappa Gold Cup hockey tournament at the MRC stadium on Friday.

In an interesting tussle for the second spot, Indian Airlines, Punjab & Sind Bank, TN XI and Karnataka all finished with seven points. Indian Airlines, having won two of the three matches edged the other contenders.

In the day's first encounter, IA won the match which mattered against P&SB 3-2 as the number of wins was taken into account in the event of the teams finishing on equal points.

The Indian Airlines-IHF Junior XI final will come off on Saturday.

In the crunch match, the expertise and experience of the IA bunch turned out to be decisive. Mukesh, for once, came up with some enterprising moves and though not in the best of form, his determination caught on his teammates.

Brojen Singh came up with a peach of an effort to settle the issue in their favour, after the bankmen negated the two-goal deficit.

Failure to come good from any of the eight penalty corners meant the bankmen had to come out with something out of the ordinary to schythe through the well-manned IA defence, where the young Suresh Kumar came with something extra everytime to put out the meaningful probings of the bankmen.

The reliable customer Altaf-ur-Rehman put IA in front as early as the fourth minute, getting all the freedom to wade his way through and come up with a mild reverse flick which P&SB goalkeeper Alloysius Edwards surprisingly let in. Atif Idris made it a double delight little later, a Dinesh Kumar cross acting as a fodder.

P&SB set about repairing the damage and from a melee, Harinder came up with a goalline save to thwart Sandeep Singh (Jr). Two penalty strokes came in tandem to the bankmen. First, Harvinder Singh himself converted the stroke after he was stick checked by Ballal. Then Harinder obstruced a goalbound Ranjit Singh warranting the award. This time Ballal could read Harvinder's angle to parry it away.

A third stroke came P&SB way after the breather. Sukhwinder Singh on the run seemed to lose momentum on a solo and tripped over Ballal. Surprisingly umpire Venu Uthappa pointed to the spot. Harvinder beat Ballal all ends up.

A minute later, Brojen Singh, having done little of note till then, came up with a blinder from just inside the circle beating Edwards squarely.

Juniors in good nick: The World Cup bound Juniors XI were just too good for the TN outfit, who rattled by the early goal never could put their act together. TN's pivot Md. Riaz had an off-day and with none to take on the mantle of scheming the moves, the sting or the lack of it was conscpicuous.

There was something special in the way the Juniors combined with everyone seemed to be aware of his role. Olympians Dilip Tirkey and Baljit Singh Sani gave nothing away in the defence. Up front, the three-some striking force of Rawat, Rajeev Mishra and Rajesh Chouhan carried too many guns for the TN defence.

An early penalty corner strike from Gurmoil Singh acted as an appetiser for the Juniors. And they never let up the pressure and it was well past the half-hour before TN could design their first worthwhile move. There could not be more honest triers than the likes of Thirumalvalavan, Prabhakaran and Kirubakaran. But it turned out to be a day where they stumbled more than what they could humbly put together.

Just after the breather, Rajesh Chauhan and Rajeev Mishra authored the second goal, the former coming in a long way to give the finishing touches. To complete a fine day for the enterprising bunch, Rajeev slammed one, close on time.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.