Blues back on track, Navua today

The Khelvin Realtors Lautoka foot­ball team is back on track to claim the FMF Inter-District Champion­ship title.

The Blues bounced back from their 1-2 loss to Dayals Steel Ba on Tuesday night to wallop Pacific Heavy Industries Nadi 5-2 at Suva's National Stadium yesterday.

Speaking to SUNsports, Lautoka head coach Banishal Naidu said it was all about team work.

"Nadi is a good team but we had a game plan, which the boys stuck to it," he said.

"That got us the win. I thank the Lord Al­mighty for giving us the strength and pow­er. We will need to go one step at a time."

Naidu said it's back to recovery before they face Vantex Solution Navua today.

"We have one more game left. We will regroup and look forward to the Navua game. It will be a crucial game for us as we're after a quarterfinal spot," he said.

"We had a couple of injuries within the team and will see how they recover but it will not stop us from qualifying to the next stage."

Naidu said despite the loss to Ba, the play­ers and officials stayed united throughout.

"We had the spirit, the bonding and the boys did the hard work to secure the win," he said.

Naidu has urged their fans to come out in numbers for today's crucial match.

Epeli Leiroti opened the scoring in the 15th minute before Luciano Orzo doubled Lautoka's advantage two minutes later. Nadi's Aabid Mohammed pulled one back in the 37th minute.

Rusiate Matarerega restored Lautoka's two-goal advantage in the 50th minute be­fore Eneriko Matau struck for Nadi in the 58th.

Sterling Vasconcellos made it 4-2 in the 85th minute before an own goal by Nadi in the 87th minute sealed the win.