It might have taken a while for Delhi Waveriders to open their account in the fifth season of the Coal India Hockey India league (HIl), but once the floodgates were opened, there was no stopping the home team as Delhi, lead by an inspirational Mandeep Singh, trounced Uttar Pradesh Wizards 8-1 here on Wednesday.
Mandeep scored two well-crafted field goals on either side of Wizards skipper VR Raghunath's goal from a penalty corner in the first half.
Parvinder Singh (56th) and Austin Smith (58th) added two late goals to help Delhi register their first win of the season in style.
By virtue of the win, Delhi moved to the fifth place in the six-team tournament, while Uttar Pradesh slumped to the bottom of the standings.
It were the visitors who looked to be knocking on the door early on, when Akashdeep Singh was almost through on goal, only for Delhi's onrushing keeper Vincent Vanasch to clear the ball away.
But against the run of play, in the fourth minute Satbir Singh found the ball on the left side deep into his half but ran till the half way line and picked out Mandeep with an inch-perfect pass. After twisting and turning in the opposition's 'D', Singh scored past Indian keeper PR Sreejesh with a reverse-hit shot. Since it was a field goal, it was considered as two goals.
Then the visitors slowly started to come into the match and earned three penalty corners in quick succession. The first two were saved by Delhi's custodian Vincent, but he could do nothing about the third one as Raghunath scored to bring his team back into the match. The score read 2-1.
In the second quarter, Delhi's keeper Vanasch had to be at his best to first deny Ramandeep Singh and then produced an even better save to prevent Raghunath scoring from another penalty corner.
But, Delhi, driven by vocal home support, kept pushing forward in numbers at the end of the half. And their persistence paid off.
Wizards' keeper Sreejesh was only able to deny Manuel Brunet's shot, but Mandeep, who was at the right place at the right time, tucked home the second goal during a goalmouth scramble. Delhi thus went into the halftime with a 4-1 advantage.
In the third quarter Wizards made most of the attack and the home team was relatively content in sitting back and counter attacking the opponents.
Mandeep could have had his hat-trick only for Sreejesh to deny him from close range at the end of the quarter.
With UPW pushing forward more in the final quarter, Delhi had more spaces left opened at the back, which they made the most of.
First from a impressive counter-attacking move, which saw Mandeep laying Parvinder Singh through on goal and the latter made no mistake in finishing off the move and sealing the goal.
Delhi weren't done yet as they saved the best for the last. A brilliant passing move involving Mandeep, Austin Smith and Santa was tucked into an empty net by Smith.