The young Republican team will face an equally young Khalsa XI for the title after the latter managed to put aside a stubborn Rebel Sports Club in a very vocal match.

The decibel levels were at their highest as Rebel failed to find the goal and ran repeatedly into the rock solid Lawrence Noronha. The 21-year-old, who had an outstanding quarter-final match, was pushed back into the defence to create moves from the back.

That Noronha managed with competence, slamming a hard shot from the right to Mayuresh Sawant on the left. Sawant fed Alton Rodrigues to score a minute before the breather.

Noronha almost scored himself in the 53rd minute when his rocket clearance from the half-line slammed into the post, past a stunned goalkeeper Ryan Miranda. Miranda recovered just enough to pad the ball weakly, straight to Sawant. Sawant pushed awayto Aester Gonsalves who had an easy goal to score.

However after the match, Rebels lodged a protest with the BHA stating that Kishor Mohite, who had earlier played gor Greater Mumbai Police, played today for Khalsa XI. The decision for the same will be taken tomorrow, a press release stated.

Pereira panache: Bosco Pereira could do no wrong today as he repeatedly sounded the boards past a clueless Airlines goalkeeper Laxman Thakur. Twice Pereira scored as a result of Gurpreet Singh's imagination. The sardar's free hit went off a defender's stick to Pereira who shot between the goalkeeper's legs for the first goal in the 24th minute.

And then Gurpreet's stick came to work to create the fourth goal. This time the pass was intended for Pereira who guided past two tired Airline defenders to score his third goal in the 48th minute. Pereira, in between, had shot in his team's second in the 25th minute, acting on R Lewis' smart pass off an off-colour Junet Jada to take his team 2-0 into half-time. Thethird goal came off a centre by Pereira, again,to Lewis. The latter set up Glen D'Souza who scored.