Nigel Si­mon

Ti­tle-hold­er and two-time win­ner, De­fence Force will be eye­ing a re­peat of last year's tri­umph when it faces bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic in the First Cit­i­zens Cup fi­nal at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya, tonight from 7 pm. In last year's de­cider at the same venue, De­fence Force got a lone goal from Richard "Sha­ka" Roy to beat Joe Pub­lic 1-0. It was one of on­ly two ti­tles which Joe Pub­lic, win­ners of five ti­tles last year, failed to cap­ture dur­ing the 2009 sea­son as W Con­nec­tion lift­ed the Lu­cozade Sports Goal Shield beat­ing De­fence Force in that ti­tle-de­cider.

Speak­ing on the eve of this year's fi­nal which will car­ry a first prize of $80,000 De­fence Force coach Ross Rus­sell not on­ly promised a vic­to­ry but said he wants his team to score more goals. The Teteron Boys reached the fi­nal af­ter a 2-1 penal­ty win over St Ann's Rangers in the quar­ter­fi­nals af­ter a 0-0 draw fol­lowed by a slim 1-0 win against Ma Pau SC 1-0 in the se­mi-fi­nals. "We have score a lot through­out the tour­na­ment so far," Rus­sell con­tin­ued. "So this game we will base it more in at­tack to re­turn to our (Dig­i­cel Pro League) first round form. "De­fen­sive­ly we are go­ing to be sol­id but would like to be known as the scor­ing team," con­tin­ued the De­fence Force coach. With in­flu­en­tial winger Kevon Carter out for the rest of the sea­son with a bro­ken leg suf­fered in the Rangers en­counter, Rus­sell was forced in­to a few changes for the semi­fi­nal match with out-of-favour na­tion­al winger Chris­ton Bap­tiste mak­ing a re­turn to the start­ing line-up.

The Teteron Boys will once again re­ly on strik­er De­von Jorls­ing and Roy to car­ry the match to the East­ern Li­ons, who are com­ing off a 4-1 loss to Colum­bus Crew in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League on Thurs­day at the same venue. While con­fi­dent in his team's abil­i­ty to come out on top, Rus­sell said he was ex­pect­ing a very tough chal­lenge from Joe Pub­lic, but one his side will get past. "Joe Pub­lic did well against W Con­nec­tion in the semis com­ing from 1-0 down to win the game (3-1). "But there are sys­tems to work around any­thing. So we will have our sys­tem to break down their at­tack and they will have to deal with our at­tack," said the De­fence Force coach. Joe Pub­lic coach, Derek King is al­so seek­ing a vic­to­ry to end his club's bar­ren spell in the com­pe­ti­tion.

"This is the third straight First Cit­i­zens Cup fi­nal we are in­to and we don't in­tend on los­ing it," King said. "It's very im­por­tant for the play­ers, staff and di­rec­tors af­ter los­ing the pre­vi­ous two."

The East­ern Li­ons were de­feat­ed in the 2008 fi­nal by six-time win­ners, W Con­nec­tion be­fore los­ing to De­fence Force last year and this time around King wants re­venge. How­ev­er it will not be an easy task as De­fence Force in­flict­ed a 3-1 whip­ping in their on­ly meet­ing so far this sea­son, in the league at Ma­coya. "Com­ing up against De­fence Force will be tough be­cause we are two good teams with good ri­val­ry and no one wants to lose the Fi­nal. "They will be com­ing to give their best and that means we must put in good prepa­ra­tions and hope for the best.

I will be re­mind­ing my play­ers that ball pos­ses­sion is not all, be­cause foot­ball has an end prod­uct and that's goals. So we need to get the ball in the back of the net." King is ex­pect­ed to have key play­ers Ker­ry Bap­tiste, Yu Hoshide, Trent Noel, Car­lyle Mitchell, Makan His­lop, An­dre Tou­s­saint, Hay­den Tin­to and Gayson Gre­go­ry all avail­able for se­lec­tion tonight as they came through the Crew en­counter on Thurs­day with­out pick­ing up any ma­jor in­juries.