Naps, Tigers clash at Westmoorings

The south­ern­ers have giv­en a strong dis­play for the sea­son so far, with just four dropped points from two drawn en­coun­ters, pre­vent­ing an oth­er­wise per­fect record of 24 points from eight match­es. But on Wednes­day, the reign­ing cham­pi­on team will face St An­tho­ny's Col­lege, which is prob­a­bly the team's tough­est op­po­nent in the League, and a team that sits three points be­hind them, in sec­ond on the stand­ings with 17 points from sev­en games.

The match is set to be the fea­ture game on the day's sev­en-match pro­gramme from 3:30 pm at 'the Tigers' Westmoor­ings ground, with coach­es, An­gus Eve (Naps) and Ronald Daniel (St An­tho­ny's) have al­ready said they will re­spect each oth­er this af­ter­noon.

How­ev­er, there is un­like­ly to be any change in strate­gies, as both have agreed to play their own game, and al­low the oth­er to ad­just.

Both teams have shown ex­plo­sive pow­er in at­tack and stur­di­ness in de­fence, and it could be a mat­ter of what is put out by both teams that will lead to a sat­is­fac­to­ry re­sult for ei­ther side.

Eve, the Naps coach told Guardian Me­dia Sports that his team has been qui­et­ly go­ing about its busi­ness this sea­son. He be­lieves his team has been the tar­get of many teams, but they will take every game a step at a time. "Teams in­crease their in­ten­si­ty when they play Na­pari­ma, but they move on to un­der­per­form and get four goals from oth­er teams. We are one of three un­beat­en teams in the tour­na­ment to date and our mind­set is that we will play one game at a time."

Eve said, hav­ing seen the Tigers play he knows it will be a tough match for his team, as their op­po­nents pos­sess a sol­id de­fence and a pow­er­ful at­tack­ing force that's backed by the good coach­ing staff. "They have a good team."

How­ev­er, Eve, a for­mer na­tion­al play­er, now turned coach, said he has con­fi­dence in their style of play and will not change it for any team, be­cause he be­lieves the team should in­stead change for them.

Daniel, the Tigers' coach who is known pop­u­lar­ly as 'Hus­tler' said he will be treat­ing this game and every oth­er game as a fi­nal. "I am not go­ing to make any ad­just­ments for Na­pari­ma. We will be go­ing out to play our style of foot­ball. Let them change their game if they want."

Hus­tler not­ed, "What our play­ers put out, will lead to the re­sult."

Al­so ex­pect­ed to be a bumper con­test to­day is the clash be­tween sev­enth-place Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) and ninth-place Trin­i­ty Col­lege East at Arou­ca, while third Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do will host St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la.

The Green Ma­chine of St Au­gus­tine will be com­ing off their first vic­to­ry of the sea­son, a more-than-con­vinc­ing 5-1 rout of Mal­ick last week at their Sty Au­gus­tine home and coach Trevor Spicer will be keen to con­tin­ue their win­ning start.

Cara­pichaima Sec­ondary which is al­so one of the three un­beat­en teams in the league will fan­cy their chances to­day against Spey­side at Spey­side, while at Fa­ti­ma ground, fifth-place East Mu­cu­rapo will take on Pleas­antville Sec­ondary, who moved to sixth on the ta­ble af­ter their 4-1 tri­umph over Mal­ick at the week­end. All match­es be­gin at 3:30 pm.

TO­DAY'S MATCH­ES:

Spey­side vs Cara­pichaima @Spey­side

St An­tho­ny's vs Na­pari­ma @ St An­tho­ny's

Trin­i­ty East vs QRC @Trin­i­ty East

Pre­sen­ta­tion vs St Au­gus­tine @Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um

Mal­ick vs St Bene­dict's @ Ato Boldon Sta­di­um

San Juan North vs St Mary's @ San Juan

East Mu­cu­rapo vs Pleas­antville Sec @Fa­ti­ma

LAT­EST STAND­IN­GS

Teams*P*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*PTS
1*Na­pari­ma Col­lege*8*6*2*0*21*8*+13*20
2*St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege*7*5*2*0*22*7*+15*17
3*Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege*7*5*1*1*21*5*+16*16
4*Cara­pichaima East*7*4*3*0*12*7*+5*15
5*East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary*7*3*3*1*14*8*+6*12
6*Pleas­antville Sec­ondary*7*3*1*3*12*10*2*10
7*Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege*7*3*1*3*10*16*-6*10
8*Mal­ick Sec­ondary*7*3*0*4*13*12*1*9
9*Trin­i­ty Col­lege East*7*2*2*3*12*11*1*8
10*Spey­side High School*7*2*2*3*9*19*-10*8
11*San Juan North Sec­ondary*7*2*1*4*12*7*+5*7
12*St. Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary*7*1*4*2*14*13*1*7
13*St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege*7*2*0*5*7*15*-8*6
14*St. Mary’s Col­lege*8*1*1*6*5*20*-15*4
15*Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka*8*1*1*6*8*27*-19*4