Little London feeling hard done by

Little London High School head coach Jeffery Reece is calling for better officiating after his team's controversial 1-1 draw with hosts Petersfield High School in the ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup on Saturday.

Petersfield managed a 1-1 draw with last season's quarterfinalists Little London after John Summerville's fourth-minute strike was cancelled out seven minutes into the second half by Ruel Miller of Petersfield from a controversial play.

"If you were watching the game, you would have seen the error of the referee. That ball was handled. He called back the play, and the kick should've been ours. Their player played off the ball, so they caught us off guard. Because of the inexperience of our left back, who didn't come back deep enough, they caught us high," Reece said.

"Refereeing in western Jamaica has really gone to zero. Watching the game, you can really see its was just awful," he added. "I wouldn't say blame him that much for the result, but when you're officiating, you have to be on top of your game. You can't be calling against one team and not the other. You can also see Petersfield was playing really physically."

Reece, who is frustrated by what he believes is a deliberate ploy by the same set of officials, said that his players are at risk of more serious injury.

"It's the same team of referees in the Mannings (High School) game earlier this week when a Manning's player hit one of our players on his nose, and it's the same thing this time again. We have two players now with broken noses, so I'm wondering what the referee and the assistants are seeing," he said.

However, when asked why the player was allowed to continue with the facial injury, Reece told The Gleaner that he did not consider it serious.

"It's the punch that the Petersfield player gave him on his nose, so it wasn't really a head injury as such," he said. "Although he was bleeding, once he got a little jerk, blood was going to come. We asked him, he said he was ok and wanted to play, so we allowed him because we analysed the hit and saw that it wasn't much of a head injury," said Reece.