Nigel Si­mon

Na­tion­al Un­der-23 and se­nior team de­fend­er, Jo­evin Jones got the lone goal as W Con­nec­tion eked out a 1-0 win over T&TEC at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in the fea­ture match of a dou­ble-head­er on Tues­day night. Jones, the son of for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er and Po­lice coach Kelvin Jones con­nect­ed with a stun­ning left foot­ed blast in the 28th minute from a set piece which gave fel­low na­tion­al play­er and T&TEC goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip lit­tle chance. W Con­nec­tion earned the dead-ball play some 26 yards out, and from a lit­tle tap for­ward, Jones pen­e­trat­ed the wall us­ing the win­dow cre­at­ed by team-mates Ger­rard Williams and Jo­han Pelti­er, as he un­leashed a pow­er­ful strike to beat Phillip for place­ment and pow­er.

The "Savonet­ta Boys" as W Con­nec­tion are called wast­ed a chance to ex­tend their lead in the 52nd minute with re­cent­ly ac­quired winger Jo­han Pelti­er could on­ly hit the side net­ting af­ter round­ing goal­keep­er Phillip from a Jer­rel Brit­to feed and sev­en min­utes lat­er it was Brit­to's turn to hit wide of the tar­get. At the oth­er end of the field, W Con­nec­tion goal­keep­er, Jan-Michael Williams was forced in­to ac­tion in the 75th minute with a fin­ger-tip save to de­ny sub­sti­tute Ja­mal Ayres' de­flect­ed ef­fort to pre­serve his team's lead. With the win, which avenged a 2-0 first round league loss, W Con­nec­tion moved to the top of the eight-team ta­ble for the first time this sea­son with 21 points from 12 match­es, one ahead of Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA which has played a match more while T&TEC, lead­ers at the start of the day slipped to third with 19 points from 11 match­es.

The strike by Jones, al­so made cer­tain of an im­por­tant top two fin­ish at the end of round two for W Con­nec­tion as it earned the club a spot in this year's Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­onship sched­uled to be­gin next month. W Con­nec­tion has won the CFU ti­tle four times, 2001,2002, 2006 and 2009. With last sea­son's CFU cam­paign­er De­fence Force and Po­lice FC in­el­i­gi­ble to qual­i­fy as a re­sult of their late start to the 2011-2012 TT Pro League sea­son, on­ly T&TEC, Cale­do­nia, W Con­nec­tion, San Juan Jabloteh, North East Stars and St Ann's Rangers were in chase of CFU spots this sea­son. But while T&TEC still has a chance at earn­ing the sec­ond spot avail­able to T&T clubs along with Cale­do­nia, for­mer CFU cham­pi­ons, Adam's Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed San Juan Jabloteh saw it hopes dashed af­ter a 1-1 draw with the lat­ter.

For Jabloteh, re­cent sign­ing Keon Trim equalised in the 28th minute fol­low­ing an eighth minute open­er for Cale­do­nia from in-form strik­er Ja­mal Gay at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar. The goal by Gay, may have been the last for the club this sea­son as he is ex­pect­ed to leave for a one-year con­tract with US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion soon which will see him miss­ing the CFU de­cider against T&TEC on Tues­day. Al­so on Tues­day night, De­fence Force strik­er, Richard "Sha­ka" Roy banged in a hat-trick, two of which were penal­ties in a 3-1 come-from-be­hind whip­ping of St Ann's Rangers at Mal­abar to lead the league with sev­en goals. This af­ter Cameron Ro­get had giv­en Rangers a 1-0 lead. Mean­while, Di­recTV North East Stars got a sec­ond-half brace from Jean-Luc Rochford and one from Ryan Stew­art, both for­mer Cale­do­nia team-mates as they over­turned 2-0 lead for Po­lice at Cou­va. For­mer Jabloteh duo, Trent Noel and An­ton Hutchin­son scored for the Law­men.

Cur­rent Pro League Stand­ings

Teams P W D L F A Pts

W Con­nec­tion 12 7 0 5 11 11 21

Cale­do­nia 13 6 2 5 17 16 20

T&TEC 11 5 4 2 14 9 19

Jabloteh 12 5 4 2 18 14 19

De­fence Force 8 3 3 2 11 9 12

NE Stars 11 3 3 5 10 12 12

Rangers 11 2 3 6 10 17 9

Po­lice 8 1 3 4 9 12 6

Up­com­ing match­es:

To­mor­row:

Venue: Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar:

NE Stars vs Rangers, 6 pm

De­fence Force vs Jabloteh, 8 pm

Tues­day's Re­sults:

Venue: Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar:

De­fence Force 3 (Richard Roy 25th, 44th pen, 73rd pen) vs Rangers 1 (Cameron Ro­get 18th)

Jabloteh 1 (Keon Trim 28th) vs Cale­do­nia 1 (Ja­mal Gay 8th)

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va:

NE Stars 3 (Jean-Luc Rochford 69th, 72nd, Ryan Stew­art 85th) vs Po­lice 2 (Trent Noel 28th, An­ton Hutchin­son 34th)

W Con­nec­tion 1 (Jo­evin Jones 28th) vs T&TEC 0