Nigel Si­mon

Na­tion­al de­fend­er, Seon Pow­ers says his de­ci­sion to part ways with bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic and join Ma Pau ahead of the 2010 Dig­i­cel Pro League sea­sons is be­cause he is look­ing for a new chal­lenge. Speak­ing via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Pow­ers who en­joyed eight straight sea­sons with the "East­ern Li­ons," said as of Feb­ru­ary 1, he will of­fi­cial­ly be a Ma Pau play­er on a two-year con­tract. "My time at Joe Pub­lic has brought me a lot of suc­cess lo­cal­ly and abroad but at this point in my ca­reer I feel the need for a new chal­lenge which I know will be reached by Ma Pau.

"Ma Pau is a young club which has set its sights very high and hav­ing known coach Michael Mc Comie dur­ing my time at Joe Pub­lic the de­ci­sion to make the switch was not a hard one. "With Ma Pau things are go­ing to be hap­pen­ing for me be­hind the scenes as well be­cause the man­age­ment team has al­so ex­pressed some in­ter­est in send­ing me out on a few over­seas tri­als in the very near fu­ture. Pow­ers was quick to note that leav­ing Joe Pub­lic for Ma Pau has not fu­elled any bad blood be­tween him and his for­mer em­ploy­ers or coach Derek King. "I al­so had a good re­la­tion­ship at Joe Pub­lic with Derek as we were al­ways friends as team-mates be­fore he ven­tured in­to coach­ing.

Be­ing a de­fend­er like my­self King was one of the guys who in­spired me as a young play­er so I must cred­it some of my suc­cess to him." Hard-tack­ling Pow­ers al­so praised the Joe Pub­lic man­age­ment for as­sist­ing him dur­ing the time of his bro­ken leg in 2008 even though the in­jury was not sus­tained while rep­re­sent­ing the club. "When I broke my leg in 2008, Joe Pub­lic stepped in and paid for my med­ical bills which I was very grate­ful for and in the end I sac­ri­ficed and re­paid the club through my salary de­duc­tions." Dur­ing his time at Joe Pub­lic, Pow­ers won both the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy, T&T Pro League and Su­per League ti­tles twice each along with the Su­per League Knock­out, Toy­ota Cup (twice), Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl, First Cit­i­zens Cup and Lu­cozade Big Six.