St Georges take aim at DPL title
Published: Tuesday | November 3, 2009
Two years after gaining promotion to the nation's top-flight football competition, Portland-based outfit St Georges Sports Club have been busy carving out a solid reputation.
They are within touching distance of the Digicel Premier League (DPL) end-of-first round final after their 1-0 away victory against Portmore United on Sunday night at Ferdie Neita Park.
Their coach, Braxton Hyre, lists getting into Sunday's end-of-round final as just one of their many objectives for the season. The team is looking to win the competition and, after Sunday night's display, not too many persons would be willing to bet against them.
"The end-of-round final is there but we are not thinking about that I'm thinking about winning the championship, that's what we are looking to ultimately," said Hyre.
"This is a good set of players. They are gelling together and you can see the concentration is getting there. I didn't even have to talk to them that much today. They are playing well and I think they understand their roles better and I appreciate that."
Hyre, who has been at the club for several years as support staff to previous coaches such as Donovan Duckie, took time to assess his team's performance against the former champions.
"In the first half we went for it and in the second we changed our approach in terms of getting behind the ball and trying to hit them on the counter and it paid off for us," Hyre stated.
Outplayed
St Georges got off to a flying start and were quite comfortable in front of the not-too-welcoming Portmore United home support, outplaying their more celebrated hosts in impressive fashion throughout the opening exchanges in particular.
When midfielder Leon Irving lodged his 21st minute shot in the roof of the net beyond Portmore's Shawn Sawyers, there was little surprise as it came during one of their many spells of dominance.
Portmore tried their best to get on level terms throughout but, despite getting a fair share of opportunities, could not respond in time and now find themselves in sixth position after being leapfrogged by Arnett Gardens.
Coach Linval Dixon was not pleased with his team's output and expressed particular concern with his strikers' goal shyness.
"It was a hard game but we got some chances that we should have capitalised on and we did not," he said."
We made a mistake at the back and paid dearly for it but, again, we got enough chances to score and that is where our problem lies. We are not scoring enough goals but we have to continue to work hard.
"We are not scoring and so we have to make some changes and adjustments to try and find the right chemistry and rhythm to get goals. That's what we are trying to do, we are working really hard to get that done."
Standings
Digicel Premier League standings after matches played on Sunday.
(Tabulate under Teams, Play, Win, Draw, Lose, Goals For, Goals Against, Second Round Points, Points)
Teams
| P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | PTS | ||
| Tivoli | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 22 | 10 | 12 | 23 | |
| St Georges | 10 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 11 | 3 | 8 | 21 | |
| H View | 10 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 15 | 8 | 7 | 19 | |
Boys' Town | 10 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 14 | |
Arnett | 10 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 13 | |
| Portmore | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 8 | -1 | 13 | |
| W'house | 10 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 12 | 16 | -4 | 13 | |
| Village | 10 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 7 | 9 | -2 | 12 | |
| Rivoli | 10 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 11 | -1 | 11 | |
| Sporting | 10 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 9 | -1 | 9 | |
| H Lions | 10 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 15 | -6 | 7 | |
August Twn | 10 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 19 | -14 | 5
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