Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion stayed on course for a fifth Dig­i­cel Pro League crown af­ter it reg­is­tered a come-from-be­hind 2-1 win over Po­lice in their top-of-the-clash in the first match of a dou­ble-head­er at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Fri­day night. With the win, W Con­nec­tion im­proved to 23 points from nine match­es, nine ahead of new sec­ond placed team North East Stars which bat­tled to a 0-0 draw away to Pt Fortin Civic FC at the Ma­haica Oval in Point Fortin, yes­ter­day while Po­lice is next with 13 points, the same as De­fence Force which has a match hand.Cale­do­nia AIA and Cen­tral FC are next with 13 points each af­ter a 1-1 draw in the sec­ond match on Fri­day, and at the oth­er end of the ta­ble, Jabloteh's eked out a 1-0 win over St Ann's Rangers with a 52nd minute Ker­ry Bap­tiste, his league-high eight of the cam­paign to join Pt Fortin on ten points.Go­ing in­to the Fri­day's match, Po­lice coach Richard Hood was con­fi­dent that his team would end a run of two 1-0 loss­es this cam­paign to W Con­nec­tion and pull off a win.

How­ev­er, it was dou­ble dis­ap­point­ment for the Law­men" who re­mained with 13 points as they re­ceived of­fi­cial no­tice of a sus­pen­sion of all sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties un­til fur­ther no­tice pri­or to kick off due to an alarm­ing crime rate.Al­ready de­fend­ing league cham­pi­on De­fence Force, an­oth­er arm of the T&T Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has re­ceived a stand-down or­der on all sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

The di­rec­tive is linked to the T&T gov­ern­ment's re­ac­tion to grue­some spate of 22 mur­ders to date in 2014.De­fence Force, on a bye this week­end, and Po­lice were ham­pered by a lim­it­ed State of Emer­gency (SoE) is­sued by the same Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion back in 2011 (Au­gust-No­vem­ber).De­fence Force, along with Cale­do­nia, are sched­uled to rep­re­sent T&T in the Caribbean qual­i­fy­ing to the 2014/2015 CCL, which should be­gin in less than two months.In a me­dia state­ment on Fri­day, civ­il mil­i­tary af­fairs of­fi­cer Ma­jor Al Alexan­der ad­vised that "with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, all T&T De­fence Force's in­volve­ment in na­tion­al, re­gion­al and com­mu­ni­ty type/lev­el sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties is sus­pend­ed in favour of the op­er­a­tional ex­i­gen­cies of the ser­vice and be­cause of the par­tic­u­lar re­quire­ments that our per­son­nel are ex­pect­ed to sat­is­fy."This self-im­posed sus­pen­sion will last as long as is deemed nec­es­sary by the Force."Alexan­der lat­er added that the move was tak­en to "lend sup­port to the po­lice in the fight against crime."

As for Po­lice and coach Hood, who are hav­ing their best show­ing in re­cent years, and in­ac­tiv­i­ty now could lead to ex­treme dis­ap­point­ment.Hood's side took a 1-0 lead in the 14th minute of play when a de­flect­ed Eli­jah Bel­grave strike found its way past an un­for­tu­nate W Con­nec­tion goal­keep­er Ju­lani Archibald who was called in­to ac­tion two min­utes to par­ry away a Trent Noel free-kick.

W Con­nec­tion came close to draw­ing lev­el first through strik­er Hashim Ar­cia, who slipped on a great chances in the 25th minute, and strike part­ner Shah­don Win­ches­ter, who shaved the cross­bar be­fore Neil Ben­jamin Jr struck past goal­keep­er Adri­an Fon­cette and in­to the far cor­ner for a1-1 score­line.Win­ches­ter could have giv­en his team a 2-1 lead at the half, but the for­mer Fin­land-based play­er curled his at­tempt just high over the cross­bar.With­in sec­onds of the restart Jer­rel Brit­to's strike from close range from a Ben­jamin pass was mirac­u­lous­ly cleared off the line by de­fend­er Chris­ton Thomas, while the re­bound was di­rect­ed in­to the net by Ben­jamin, how­ev­er he was in an off­side po­si­tion, rul­ing the goal null and void.Fon­cette was now un­der seige from W Con­nec­tion and he did well to keep his team lev­el a few min­utes lat­er when he ac­ro­bat­i­cal­ly guid­ed wide a blast from Alvin Jones, who's old­er broth­er and na­tion­al mid­field­er Jo­evin Jones and de­fend­er Mekeil Williams were both omit­ted from the squad pri­or to the start by W Con­nec­tion coach Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er af­ter the pair opt­ed not to trav­el with the team bus to the venue.

W Con­nec­tion's pres­sure even­tu­al­ly brought re­ward in the 70th minute when the live­ly Brit­to won a penal­ty just in­side the area fol­low­ing a foul by Thomas in the clear view of ref­er­ee Gyasi Mc Don­ald.The spot kick was con­fi­dent­ly con­vert­ed by W Con­nec­tion cap­tain and de­fen­sive mid­field­er Ger­ard Williams of St Kitts/Nevis past Fon­cette for a 2-1 lead and six min­utes from time he played provider for Ben­jamin, who stuck the cross­bar while in the fi­nal minute, Po­lice de­fend­er Dex­ter Al­leyne cleared off the line, a lobbed Hashim Ar­cia ef­fort, which had goal­keep­er Fon­cette beat­en.In the sec­ond match, de­spite the ab­sence of coach Ter­ry Fen­wick Ja­son Mar­cano hand­ed Cen­tral a 1-0 ad­van­tage three min­utes be­fore the break when his first-time strike, on a pa­tient Jo­han Pelti­er pass in­side the area, stunned the Mor­vant/ Laven­tille club, es­pe­cial­ly goal­keep­er Shemel Loui­son.Af­ter miss­ing a few chances ear­li­er on Cale­do­nia fi­nal­ly drew lev­el at 1-1 in the 56th minute with a con­vert­ed penal­ty by Den­sil Theobald af­ter ref­er­ee Neil Brizan award­ed the kick fol­low­ing a push on Aubrey David by for­mer team-mate Ataullah Guer­ra in the mid­dle of the penal­ty area.Goal­keep­er Jan-Michael Williams lat­er kept Cen­tral in the game by pulling off a mag­nif­i­cent save to de­ny sub­sti­tute Ty­rone Charles' free-kick from 26-yards out.

Cen­tral FC end­ed the match with ten men as three min­utes in­to time added de­fend­er Ja­mal Jack was shown a di­rect red card fol­low­ing a late slid­ing tack­le on Cale­do­nia sub­sti­tute Key­on Ed­wards.

Re­sults

Fri­day: W Con­nec­tion 2 (Neil Ben­jamin Jr 31st, Ger­ard Williams 70th pen) vs Po­lice 1 (Eli­jah Bel­grave 14th)

Cale­do­nia 1 (Den­sil Theobald 56th pen) vs Cen­tral FC 1 (Ja­son Mar­cano 42nd)

Yes­ter­day: San Juan Jabloteh 1 (Ker­ry Bap­tiste 52nd) vs St Ann's Rangers 0

Point Fortin Civic 0 vs North East Stars 0