Humble Lion hungry for more

Humble Lion secured a place in the playoffs of the Jamaica Premier League (JPL) for the first time since 2017 after holding Waterhouse to a 0-0 draw at the Waterhouse mini-stadium yesterday. Now, according to head coach Andrew Price, the club is eager for more success.

The point placed the Clarendon-based club in fifth place with 42 points. They will face Harbour View (44 points) in the quarterfinals of the playoffs.

Price was elated to bring the club through the playoffs and to be challenging for the title once again.

“It’s been a long time coming. The last time Humble Lion were in the playoffs was 2017. I must commend the players for the shift they put in the entire season under a lot of challenges.

“But they stuck to the task, and we are here in the playoffs. But the work has really now just started because we want more, and we look at it as five more games to challenge for the title,” he stated.

“That is what we want (challenge for title). Our first goal for the season was to maintain our place in the top six, and we did that, and now that we are in the playoffs, we want more success,” he added.

STRENGTH IN DEFENCE

“Although they are not on many people’s list of favourites to win the league, he maintains that their strength in defence will give them as good a chance as any.

“We have been competitive with all the top teams throughout the season. We have really put in a workmanlike performance. Defensively, we are sound. We need to put in some additional work in the offensive areas as we do not get a lot of goals.

“But every team that plays us finds it hard to score on us, and if we continue doing that, sometimes it only takes one (goal) to win a game. So we will continue to work hard, work on our finishing and get ourselves prepared,” he said.

Both teams gave a good showing as the two teams got chances on the day, and the game could have gone either way. However, the home team had the much better opportunities after the break but couldn’t seem to get the ball across the line as near misses were the order of the day.

Waterhouse slipped to eighth in the standings with 39 points, one less than Portmore, who turned back Molynes 3-0 and four adrift of Dunbeholden, the team to claim the sixth and final playoff spot, with 41 points.

Waterhouse coach Marcel Gayle thought a poor preseason led to their slow start, which, ultimately, proved their undoing.

“In the first round we finished about ninth, and this round, we were one or two places better.

“But the (slow) start had to do with preparation, and that was caused by a lot of other factors. Each season, we have things that go wrong and we try to correct them going into the season. Now we know what went wrong for this season, so we will go back to the drawing board and try to correct them,” he said.

Meanwhile, Arnett Gardens topped the JPL preliminary round with 55 points, followed by Cavalier on 52 and Mount Pleasant on 46.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com

Yesterday’s results

Faulkland 4 Chapelton 4

Dunbeholden 3 Mount Pleasant 1

Portmore 3 Molynes 0

Cavalier 2 Montego Bay 1

Arnett 4 Tivoli 1

Harbour View 0 Vere 0