Ainsley Walters, Freelance Writer

Harbour View's Donald Stewart (centre) tackles as Portmore United's Wolry Wolfe (right) kicks the ball, while Harbour View's Oneil Smith looks on during their Cash Plus Premier League football match at the Harbour View Mini Stadium on Sunday night. Portmore United won 1-0. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

HARBOUR VIEW's coach, Lenny Hyde, said the ejection of Captain Lovel Palmer, two minutes inside the second half of Sunday's big clash against Portmore United, unnerved his side, resulting in a 0-1 home loss to their arch-rivals.

Billed as a rematch of the recent all-Jamaican Caribbean Club Championships quarter-final match in Trinidad and Tobago which Harbour View won 2-0 before going on to lift the regional title. The showdown at Compound was a heated affair with both teams having two games in hand and gunning for a place in the first-round final of the Cash Plus Premier League.

However, it was a brutal match, which kept referee, Dave Peterkin, busy, issuing seven cards, four cautions in the final 19 minutes of the first half followed by an instant red to Palmer in the second minute after the break.

Portmore got their winner 13 minutes later when Steven Morrissey outjumped the defending champions' defence in the six-yard box to flash a header past goalkeeper Dwayne Kerr off a cross from Ricardo Cousins.

Lost our head

"I think we lost our head after the red card," Hyde said after the match, which could have easily seen at least two other ejections were it not for the leniency of the referee.

"I don't think we handled it well," he added. "We were supposed to settle and pass the ball around. We are at home and that's what we should have done."

Hyde's opposite number, Linval Dixon, was happy with the away win, which moved his side to second in the standings on 14 points, one behind Tivoli Gardens, who beat Boys' Town 1-0 but have played two games more than Portmore, Seba and Harbour View.

Seba stayed on 13 points but slipped to third after losing 0-1 at Arnett Gardens. Harbour View remained on 12, but down to fourth place with as many points as St. Georges and Arnett Gardens, but lead both teams on goal difference having played two games less, keeping them in good stead for a spot in the first-round final.

Good football

"We looked at our loss in the Caribbean Club Championships and we didn't play badly, but they capitalised on their chances," Dixon pointed out, adding that his team didn't come to bully Harbour View.

"We came to play good football but a match-up between Harbour View and Portmore is going to be tough. You won't see flowing football," he added.

Both teams will be in action tomorrow in rescheduled games. Harbour View travel to Seba and Portmore will be at the Ferdie Neita Park in Braeton, Portmore, awaiting August Town, who slipped into the relegation zone on Sunday after a controversial 0-1 loss at Reno, in which the ball entered the goal through the side-netting but was allowed to stand.