Nigel Si­mon

Strik­er Richard "Sha­ka" Roy net­ted a dou­ble as De­fence Force end­ed the 2011/2012 T&T Pro League sea­son on a high with an em­phat­ic 5-2 spank­ing of Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA in the Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl fi­nal at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Thurs­day night. Go­ing in­to the match, the odds were heav­i­ly stacked in favour of Cale­do­nia, win­ners of three ti­tles al­ready and who had won four of five meet­ings with the "Teteron Boys" this sea­son, in­clud­ing the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy fi­nal (1-0) in March and the Lu­cozade Sport Goal Shield de­cider (3-1) last month. But de­spite miss­ing sev­en first team starters in Kevon Carter, An­ton Joseph, Ronald St Louis, Ke­ston Williams and Sean Nar­cis, Ster­ling O'Brien and Dex­ter Pacheco due to work com­mit­ments (Ca­da) and cap­tain Corey Rivers, through in­jury, the Ross Rus­sell-coached De­fence Force out­played its ri­val to land the win­ner-take-all $100,000 first prize while cap­tur­ing its first Pro Bowl. The burly Roy, the Pro League's top scor­er this sea­son with 14 goals was at the heart of his team's vic­to­ry as he net­ted two well tak­en items, one in each half while team-mates Ross Rus­sell Jr, sub­sti­tute Glynn Franklyn and Jer­wyn "Bal­ly" Balt­haz­ar added one each.

With­in a few min­utes of the kick-off, Roy sig­nalled his in­ten­tion with a low dri­ve which went inch­es wide of Cale­do­nia's Ja­maican goal­keep­er Kevin Gra­ham's left post while in the 16th minute he fired wide of the drove a low shot a cou­ple feet away from the same left up­right. At the oth­er end of the field, for­mer De­fence Force strik­er, De­vorn Jorsling had Cale­do­nia's first re­al ef­fort on goal, but he al­so missed the tar­get from in­side the 18-yard box. How­ev­er, Roy even­tu­al­ly broke the dead­lock in the 26th minute whe he turned bril­liant­ly in­side the area and blast­ed the ball past Gra­ham. That lead was short-lived though as De­fence Force de­fend­er Devin Jor­dan tripped Cale­do­nia's Wal­ter Moore in the area which left ref­er­ee Neil Brizan no choice but to award a penal­ty which was eas­i­ly con­vert­ed by winger Ka­reem Joseph past De­fence Force goalie Kevin Gra­ham who iron­i­cal­ly car­ries the same name as his op­po­site num­ber in the 33rd minute. Cale­do­nia seemed as though it had done enough to go in at the half at 1-1 but just be­fore the whis­tle, Roy ham­mered home his sec­ond, col­lect­ing a short pass from Cur­tis Gon­za­les just in­side the 18-yard box, be­fore he turned on de­fend­er Collin Nel­son and dragged a right foot­er past the out­strectched right hand of Gra­ham for a 2-1 lead.

With­in sec­onds of the restart, De­fence Force ex­tend­ed its ad­van­tage via the lanky Ross Rus­sell Jr, the coach's son who ham­mered home a left foot­er. De­spite the two-goal deficit Cale­do­nia kept bat­tling and was re­ward­ed in the 69th minute when sub­sti­tute Trevin Cae­sar who re­placed Shel­don Hold­er at the break re­duced the deficit to 3-2 in the 69th minute blast­ing in from close range. But any hopes the "Mor­vant/Laven­tille Stal­lions" had of claw­ing their way back in­to the match were dashed nine min­utes from full-time when sub­sti­tute Glynn Franklyn, brought on to strength­en the De­fence Force back­line at the ex­pense of strik­er Josi­mar Bel­grave five min­utes ear­li­er pow­ered home a head­er from a right sided free-kick by Ker­ry Joseph, an­oth­er sub­sti­tute. And with the sec­onds tick­ing away, Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar ri­fled in a fifth item for De­fence Force to com­plete a 5-2 drub­bing on to end the sea­son on a high, and af­ter los­ing two pre­vi­ous fi­nals to Cale­do­nia over past two months and the 2008 fi­nal, by a 2-0 mar­gin.

Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl re­sult: De­fence Force 5 (Richard Roy 26th, 45th, Ross Rus­sell Jr 46th, Glynn Franklyn 81st, Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar 90th) vs Cale­do­nia AIA 2 (Ka­reem Joseph 33rd pen, Trevin Cae­sar 69th)

Cale­do­nia: Kevin Gra­ham(goal­keep­er), Stephan David(cap­tain.), Ab­dal­lah Phillip(Con­rod Smith 73rd), Shel­don Hold­er(Trevin Cae­sar 46th), Col­in Nel­son, Cor­nelius Stew­art(Tray­on Bobb 65th), Key­on Ed­wards, Ka­reem Joseph, Wal­ter Moore(yel­low card), Kem­ron Pur­cell, De­vorn Jorsling

Coach: Ja­maal Shabazz

De­fence Force: Kevin Gra­ham (goal­keep­er), Jahvon Nep­tune (cap­tain)(Ker­ry Joseph 61st), Rodell El­cock, Ak­lie Ed­wards(yel­low card), Devin Jor­dan(yel­low card), Ross Rus­sell Jr.(Michael Ed­wards 80th), Cur­tis Gon­za­les, Mar­vin Jones, Josi­mar Bel­grave(Glynn Franklyn 75th), Richard Roy, Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar

Coach-Ross Rus­sell