Bennett: My partnership with Bai will blossom
Veteran defender Bennett believes his partnership with Baihakki can only get better
Even the Malaysian journalists conceded that these were the weakest Tigers team that have played for years.
Their starting 11 featured just 146 caps - Singapore had 668 - and Malaysia coach Ong Kim Swee used last night's Causeway Challenge to hand out three international debuts.
And the inexperience showed as Singapore dominated most of the match and were unlucky to come away with just a 0-0 draw.
It also meant that centre backs Daniel Bennett and Baihakki Khaizan were largely untroubled last night.
But they will surely face more proactive and more incisive opponents against Hong Kong next Tuesday and the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia in the AFF Suzuki Cup next month.
Bennett, the 38-year-old Geylang International defender who collected his 130th cap, said: "Honestly, it was a game where we can only make mistakes.
"Malaysia were disappointing because they were negative and they looked like they just didn't want to lose.
"I thought they would sit back in the first half and press us more in the second half, but they didn't.
"In that sense, it wasn't an easy game for our goalkeeper Hassan (Sunny) or for the defenders."
Indeed, the Tigers had just two good chances when Hassan prevented Amri Yahyah's 33rd-minute curler from bending into the top corner, before he tipped away Ahmad Hazwan Bakri's belter from range just before half-time.
But, with Singapore coach V Sundramoorthy keeping the same centre-back pairing as the one that lost 3-1 to Bahrain in the previous game, it looks like Bennett and Baihakki will be his choice duo for the Suzuki Cup next month.
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The 51-year-old said: "We are more or less settled at the back, although it will still depend on the opponents we face.
"For example, if we are meeting Thailand, we will have to think whether we need more pace.
"Against Hong Kong, we will need the size."
Regardless, Bennett is confident he and 127-capped Baihakki have what it takes to form a winning partnership.
He said: "I think we play well together. We just have to communicate a lot.
"We may not have played alongside at centre back because I was playing either on the left or on the right and we used to have Precious (Emuejeraye) earlier before Safuwan (Baharudin) came along.
"But we know each other for a long time and we know how each other play.
"It also helps that we have Juma'at (Jantan) and Faritz (Abdul Hameed) as fullbacks.
"In any case, I believe if we meet teams that press more than Malaysia did, we now have players who can hurt them."
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