North Street derby turns light blue
Published:Sunday | October 16, 2022 | 12:12 AMDaniel Wheeler - Staff Reporter
SIMILAR TO their Roper Cup pre-season encounter two months ago, the long-awaited North Street Derby produced a goalscoring festival that teased the expectations of both Kingston College and St George’s College.
But it was the Neville Bell-coached side that left Stadium East with sounds of victory, with a late flurry of goals to secure a 4-2 win yesterday, as well as their passage to the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup second round.
A brace from Brian Burkett in the 72nd and 90+1 minutes slammed the door shut on KC’s attempted comeback after Teyshawn Matthis and Nashordo Gibbs used the first four minutes of the second half (47th and 49th minutes respecitvely) to restore parity after trailing 2-0 at half time.
Joshua Jackson had opened the scoring in the 13th minute while Zabir Taylor added another in the 44th as the ‘Light Blues’ had the defending champions on the ropes as the game, which was postponed three weeks ago because of severe weather, sizzled.
St George’s assistant coach, Marcel Gayle, as he has been saying this season, said the result was not the important point to note in the game, but rather the performance on the way to the result.
“Usually we would be playing from the back, but we thought today we would go route one. We got KC off their rhythm and we got the goals. But I thought we were a little bit slow out of the blocks to start the second half, hence us giving up two goals. But I must commend them for holding their nerve, coming back from 2-2. It was an overall team effort,” Gayle said.
And Gayle is still not satisfied with the ouput of the St George’s team, believing they can do better.
“The result is always good, but we are focusing on how we can get better in each game that we play,” Gayle said.
Kingston College head coach Raymond Watson said unforced errors played a key role in their defeat, their first of the season.
“I just thought that defensively we made some lapses. As a coach, I can’t single out anyone, but I have to take the blame for that. We made some lapses and we gave them some goals,” Watson assessed.
One of those errors came on Burkett’s first goal when he capitalised on a poor back pass to slot home into an empty net after rounding Kingston College goalkeeper Tajarie Lee.
Watson maintained his confidence in his team’s strength with the race to win Group A now wide open, but with a warning to his team on what they have to improve on to even the score
“The lesson from this game, never be too over confident, but just be confident,” Watson said.
St George’s College are now tied with KC on 21 points, but remain in second place in Group A with an inferior goal difference.