Nigel Si­mon

De­fend­ing Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cham­pi­ons, Di­recTV W?Con­nec­tion will have its eyes set on go­ing top of the eight-team ta­ble, when it comes up against cur­rent sec­ond-placed North East Stars in a fea­ture match of a dou­ble-head­er at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la from 8 o'clock tonight.

Two hours ear­li­er, Po­lice and De­fence Force, which along with W Con­nec­tion and Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA all have four points, lock horns in the Bat­tle of Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices at the same venue. Cur­rent­ly, Pro League new­com­ers Cen­tral FC heads the stand­ing with max­i­mum six points, and a match in hand against W Con­nec­tion sched­uled for Tues­day.

How­ev­er, it will not be in ac­tion un­til to­mor­row against cel­lar-placed St Ann's Rangers, leav­ing the door open for ei­ther of Stars, W Con­nec­tion, Po­lice or De­fence Force to go top of the stand­ings at least for 24 hours. First to have a go at top spot will be Po­lice and De­fence Force, which have both won once, drawn once and lost once for four points each.

But while the law­men will be en­cour­aged by the 1-1 draw with Stars last week­end, De­fence Force, which may be with­out coach Ross Rus­sell, will need to re­bound from its 4-2 ham­mer­ing by Cale­do­nia. Rus­sell is on na­tion­al Un­der-20 du­ties. Two hours lat­er, Stars, which whipped Cale­do­nia 3-1 in its open­er be­fore draw­ing its last two match­es against De­fence Force (3-3) and Po­lice (1-1), will be ea­ger to get back to win­ning ways.

Fol­low­ing what he de­scribed as a dis­ap­point­ing draw with Po­lice, Stars' first-year coach and for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain An­gus Eve said he ex­pects the same lev­el of com­mit­ment from his play­ers against W Con­nec­tion, who have been do­ing well. W Con­nec­tion, on the oth­er hand, which is now un­der the spon­sor­ship of Stars' for­mer fi­nan­cial back­ers, need­ed two sec­ond-half items from Shah­don Win­ches­ter (51st) and Ren­nie Brit­to, nine min­utes from full-time to beat Rangers 2-1 but to­day, coach Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er will hope his play­ers put on a more clin­i­cal dis­play and get the job done ear­ly.

To­mor­row, a dou­ble-head­er is al­so card­ed for the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va with Cen­tral FC go­ing af­ter a third straight league win to start the sea­son against Rangers from 5 pm, fol­lowed by T&TEC and Cale­do­nia two hours lat­er.

Fix­tures

To­day

Venue: Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la

Po­lice vs De­fence Force, 6 pm

W Con­nec­tion vs North East Stars, 8 pm

To­mor­row

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

Cen­tral vs St Ann's Rangers,

5 pm

T&TEC vs Cale­do­nia, 7 pm

Stand­ings

Teams P W D L F A Pts

Cen­tral 2 2 0 0 3 1 6

Stars 3 1 2 0 7 5 5

Po­lice 3 1 1 1 3 2 4

W Conn 2 1 1 0 3 2 4

Cale­do­nia 3 1 1 1 6 6 4

D/Force 3 1 1 1 7 8 4

T&TEC 3 1 0 2 4 6 3

Rangers 3 0 0 3 4 7 0