Williams satisfied as TG take third
Published:Sunday | October 3, 2021 | 12:07 AMRobert Bailey - Sunday Gleaner Writer
Tivoli Gardens (TG) Head Coach Philip Williams was left satisfied with his team’s Jamaica Premier League season after they defeated Mount Pleasant Academy 4-3 on penalties to capture the third-place trophy at the UWI-JFF-Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence yesterday.
The match went to penalties after both teams had played to a 1-1 draw after full and extra time.
Williams, though still feeling a bit disappointed to have missed out on a place in the final, is happy with the result, especially considering their limited preparations heading into the campaign.
“It has been a very good season for us but we are a little disappointed that we were not in the final,” said Williams. “We feel that we were good enough to be there but it is what it is, we came out here and gave a good account of ourselves in the third-place playoff and I am pleased about that.”
“This third place is good for us because we could not train like other teams in the competition due to the fact that the minister (Desmond McKenzie) who is in charge of the COVID-19 protocols is one of our stakeholders and we couldn’t violate his orders, and therefore we started training very late,” Williams reasoned.
It was Mount Pleasant who struck first through Devonte Campbell, who found the net in the 28th minute, before TG’s Trayvone Reid found the equaliser in the 47th minute of play.
PENALTY KICKS
Neither team was able to break the deadlock, sending the game into penalty kicks where Jermaine ‘Teddy’Johnson, Rodico Wellington, Steven McQueen and Reid managed to score for Tivoli Gardens.
Captain Sue-Lae McCalla, Kevaughn Isaacs and Jourdaine Fletcher scored from the spot for Mount Pleasant. However, misses from Leonardo Ranking and Devonte Campbell gave the win to the west Kingston team.
Mount Pleasant Academy’s Technical Director Wally Downes was left extremely disappointed with his team’s performance.
“We wanted to win this game and get into the highest position, which we could have done, which is third place,” said Downes, who stated that he was still somewhat pleased with his team’s overall performance this season.
He pointed to the difficulties of travelling from St Ann into Kingston on match days and the toll that took on the players and technical staff.
“I am very proud of the club in general because travelling here every game is very difficult for us as the majority of the clubs are in Kingston and so it is an easy travel for them,” Downes said.
“It was a tough call for us because being up at five or six in the mornings and the fact that we got here every day and got our COVID-19 tests done, I think was marvellous for us,” Downes said.