QRC humbles 'Gustin' 3-1 at home

A wor­ried QRC coach Nigel Groves­nor, be­fore the match, said his ma­jor con­cern was the ex­treme tal­ent of for­mer St Mary's Col­lege winger Tyrese Spicer, who made the move to the 'Green Ma­chine', as St Au­gus­tine is com­mon­ly called, with his fa­ther Trevor Spicer, who was an as­sis­tant coach at CIC last year.

How­ev­er, his fears were dis­pelled af­ter the open­ing 10 min­utes as Spicer's surg­ing runs down the flanks were ham­pered by dis­ci­plined de­fen­sive work which was quick­ly con­vert­ed in­to at­tacks.

But Spicer did get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put his team in the lead from a nice­ly thread­ed ball through the Roy­alians de­fence on the right side in the 7th minute, but on his un­favoured right foot, he hit a weak shot that did not trou­ble Ju­maane Mc Neil in the QRC goal.

Lat­er the Roy­alians were lift­ed by a goal from Nathaniel James in the 12th minute that gave them an ear­ly sight of three points. The diminu­tive strik­er was fed a ball from the cen­tre of the park, and af­ter a mo­ment of trick­ery, he un­leashed a pow­er­ful grounder that seeped be­low the grasp of Ajahri Mur­rien in the St Au­gus­tine goal.

How­ev­er, the cheers of the QRC sup­port­ers sub­sided fol­low­ing an­oth­er build-up from the left side in the 19th minute. This time Spicer cen­tred from the left, and Ker­ry Headley's sting­ing dri­ve was par­ried in­to the path of Jardel John to fired in­to an emp­ty net.

St Au­gus­tine should have tak­en ad­van­tage in the 22nd min­utes. Mur­rien was forced in­to a save from a Ri­val­do Pa­tron's long-range ef­fort, which bounced nice­ly for John, but he drove it against the cross­bar with the goal at his mer­cy.

But this on­ly ap­peared to have an­gered a bat­tling QRC, who fired in two more goals in the half for a 3-1 ad­van­tage at the in­ter­val.

James on an­oth­er of his trou­bling runs in the 24th minute was hacked down in­side the box caus­ing the ref­er­ee to point to the penal­ty spot. And Jude-An­tho­ny John calm­ly slot­ted in the spot-kick de­spite the ac­ro­bat­ics of the St Au­gus­tine cus­to­di­an.

Four min­utes lat­er, Miguel Cross, who com­bined to cre­ate a trou­bling duo with James all af­ter­noon long, head­ed home from a cross from a free-kick by John­son be­fore the break for a 3-1 lead.

Af­ter­wards, both teams con­tin­ued to trade punch­es, but the home team looked the more like­ly to score, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Jahiem Grander­son picked up the ball un­marked in the 54th minute, but his rasp­ing dri­ve was some­how pushed wide by Mur­rien.

St Au­gus­tine thought they should have scored when a through ball found the skil­ful Spicer, who turned past his mark­er in the 78th minute, but his telling dri­ve was pushed wide by Mc Neil.

And they came even clos­er five min­utes from the end, as Spicer drove down the right side and de­liv­ered for an un­marked Kyle Car­ring­ton, who blazed over a gap­ing goal.

James though, al­most had the last say in the match, when he raced down the left flank but his low shot just whisked the up­right.

Mean­while, reign­ing cham­pi­on team Na­pari­ma Col­lege, de­spite drop­ping two points in its last match against East Mu­cu­rapo, main­tained its un­beat­en run with a 3-0 drub­bing of ri­vals St Bene­dict's at at the school's Lewis Street, San Fer­nan­do home, while in the sis­ter isle of To­ba­go, the home side Spey­side High record­ed its first win of the league, com­ing away with a 2-1 vic­to­ry over San Juan North.

Kern Mc Don­ald sparked wild cel­e­bra­tions with his open­ing goal in the 15th minute be­fore Nicholas Sanchez sealed the win in the sec­ond half. San Juan, the 2018 Na­tion­al In­ter­col run­ner-up, got a lone goal from Salah Chase.

Across in south­ern Trinidad, Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka al­so came from be­hind to bag all three points away to Pleas­antville Sec­ondary.

And at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la, St Mary's con­tin­ued its los­ing streak go­ing down 3-0 to Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do.

WEDNES­DAY'S RE­SULTS

Queen’s Royal College 3 (Nathaniel James 13, Jude Anthony Johnson 24, Miguel Cross 29) vs St Augustine Secondary 1 (Jardel John 20)

Trin­i­ty Mo­ka 2 (Tene­son Tez­era 47th, Joshua Wil­son 83rd) vs Pleas­antville 1 (Theon Mar­cano 25th)

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege 3 vs CIC 0

Spey­side 2 (Kern Mc Don­ald 15, Nicholas Sanchez 62) vs San Juan 1 (Salah Chase 65)

Cara­pichaima 1 vs East Mu­cu­rapo 1

Na­pari­ma 3 vs St Bene­dict's 0

Trinity College East v Malick Secondary (did not play);

St Anthony’s College are on a bye

STAND­INGS:

P*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*PTS
1. Na­pari­ma Col­lege*3*2*1*0*8*2*6*7
2. Mal­ick Sec­ondary*2*2*0*0*7*1*6*6
3. Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege*3*2*0*1*10*2*8*6
4. Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege*3*2*0*1*7*9*-2*6
5. East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary*3*1*2*0*7*3*4*5
6. Trin­i­ty Col­lege East*2*1*1*0*4*3*1*4
7. St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege*2*1*1*0*8*2*6*4
8. Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary*2*1*1*0*3*2*1*4
9. Pleas­antville Sec­ondary*3*1*0*2*4*6*-2*3
10. St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege*3*1*0*2*5*7*-2*3
11. Spey­side High*3*1*0*2*3*13*-10*3
12. Trin­i­ty Col­lege MO­KA*3*1*0*2*3*9*-6*3
13. St. Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary*3*0*2*1*4*6*-2*2
14. San Juan North Sec­ondary*2*0*0*2*1*3*-2*0
15. St. Mary’s Col­lege*3*0*0*3*2*10*-8*0