Kota Kinabalu: Lucky Sabah managed to salvage a point after a 2-2 draw in their Super League encounter against PKNS FC at the Petaling Jaya Stadium on Friday night.
The team was two goals down with 17 minutes to go when Alton Linus intercepted the ball from midfield and passed it to Shahrudin Yaakub who then delivered a perfect cross for Michael Baird to head in and to give Sabah a lifeline.
The second goal came in the 81st minute and this time Michael repaid the favour as his cross from a short corner taken by K. Thanaraj was met by Shahruddin Yaakub's head that hit the cross bar and rebounded off the leg of PKNS's Helmi Remeli before crossing the line.
Sabah was hardly in the match before the first goal.
They may have had more possession than the home team especially in the first half but stray passes saw them failing to make any headway into the opponents' penalty area.
They failed to manage a single shot on target throughout the half.
The only chance they created was when Michael Baird struck a free kick that narrowly missed the post in the 32nd minute.
It was a costly miss as 10 minutes later, fellow Australian import Brandan Gan conceded a foul on Mickael Nicoise outside the penalty box and the lanky French import stepped up to smash the free kick past the defensive wall and goalkeeper Azizon Abd Kadir.
Mickael had been a constant threat to the Sabah defence throughout the match and he struck again in the second half when he outpaced Reithuddin Emran before unleashing a stiff grounder into the far left corner to give the home team a two-goal advantage.
Sabah had a nervy time towards the end as PKNS mounted several attempts to try to win the match and in the 88th minute Sumardi Harjalan managed to clear a goal-bound attempt off the line.
With the draw, Sabah is up one place to ninth position in the standings after collecting five points from five matches played.
Their next game will be against defending champion Kelantan at the Likas Stadium on Feb 8.
