Cavalier proving tricky for Waterhouse
Published:Tuesday | December 31, 2019 | 12:28 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
Since returning to the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) in 2017, Cavalier have proven very difficult opponents for league leaders Waterhouse, at least at the preliminary stage of the competition.
In eight regular season meetings over the last three years, Waterhouse have not registered a single victory against the Rudolph Speid-coached team, who have four wins and four draws. On Sunday Cavalier made it 10 games since Waterhouse have defeated them in a regular season match, with a 1-0 win away at the Drewsland Stadium.
However, the play-off is another story as Waterhouse defeated their nemesis 3-0 on aggregate (2-0 and 1-0) over two legs in the RSPL semi-finals last season. But despite this, Speid thinks their dominance over Waterhouse is simply because they really enjoy playing against the league leaders.
“In our previous stint in the Premier League (before relegation in 2016), they used to beat us every time. But since then, they haven’t beaten us,” Speid said. “But Waterhouse, we always like to play Waterhouse. We love their vibes, their spectators are awesome, because when we play good they cheer for us, so it is somewhere we really like to go.
“We also like to play them because of their style. They try to score a lot of goals, which really makes it exciting for the counter. But the other reason is they are so organised in how they play. They have a playing style, so it is easier for us to counter. Teams that are not organised are difficult to play against, but we just enjoy playing them.”
SLOW START
Cavalier had a slow start to the season, amassing just 14 points at the end of the first round, which left them seventh in the table with three wins and five draws from 11 outings. However, Speid, said his squad was weakened before the start of the season and pointed out that he had to reconstruct the team to remain competitive. But after beating the league’s current top two teams (Waterhouse and Mount Pleasant FA) in consecutive games, he believes they are now settling back into their stride.
“[On Sunday] night, we fielded the youngest team we have ever fielded in the Premier League, with Shaneil Thomas, Dwayne Atkinson, and Ronaldo Webster,” Speid said. “We had six teenagers in the squad at 17 (years). Once you have teenagers, you have to play an up-tempo game, and we kept the tempo high right throughout. We applied a lot of pressure and were able to get the goal, a little fortuitously, but it worked out.
“This is not the squad we started the season with and if you have to change your squad, you will end up having to recalibrate with the players how you want to play. So it took a while to gel and find a style that suit the players, but I think we are getting there.
“The first round we got 14 points, the second round we have 14 points already, so we are doing better than the first round and we are just two points from fourth, so slowly but surely we closing the gap. We still have work to do because we will lose some more players in January. But the recent results against the two top teams show that something is there we can build on.”