De­fend­ing Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cham­pi­ons De­fence Force con­tin­ued its climb up the nine-team ta­ble with a sec­ond win in four days, 1�0 over fourth-placed Point Fortin Civic FC at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va on Sun­day night.

The lone goal came in the 34th minute through de­fend­er Glynn Franklyn who was lat­er red card­ed.

With the win, De­fence Force im­proved to 26 points from 14 match­es in fifth spot, while Point Fortin, which had its eight-match un­beat­en run snapped, stayed fourth with 29, three be­hind joint sec­ond placed Cen­tral FC and North East Stars while lead­ers Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion has 37 from 17.

From ear­ly as the sev­enth minute Point Fortin's 22-year-old strik­er and league top scor­er Mar­cus Joseph threat­ened to add to his 12 goals, how­ev­er his blast crashed off the base of the right up­right, and from the re­bound, team-mate An­dre Tou­s­saint struck the op­po­site post.

De­fence Force, de­spite be­ing forced back al­so had mul­ti­ple tries at goal, be­gin­ning with a left foot­ed vol­ley by de­fen­sive mid­field­er Dave Long ten min­utes in­to the match, which forced a save out of goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip.

Phillip's goal al­so came un­der threat in the 24th minute, when a blast from dis­tance by Josi­mar Bel­grave siz­zled inch­es over-bar, and sec­onds lat­er an even­ly pow­er­ful crack from the top of the six yard area left the Civic goalie tem­porar­i­ly wind­ed af­ter get­ting his body in the way.

The "Teteron Boys" fi­nal­ly made a short pe­ri­od of pres­sure count when they went ahead in the 34th minute through Franklyn who got the last touch for his team off a Ker­ry Joseph cor­ner from the left be­fore it went in off a Point Fortin play­er.

De­vorn Jorsling then had a chance to ex­tend his team's lead two min­utes lat­er but his ef­fort was thwart­ed by Phillip and four min­utes from the break Civic's up­right came to its team res­cue af­ter de­fend­er Wes­lie John's cut-off on a Jemel Se­bro cross, di­rect­ed the ball on­to the side of the frame and luck­i­ly out for a cor­ner.

Four min­utes in­to the sec­ond-half Jorsling test­ed the Point Fortin goal again and in the 55th minute it had a shout for penal­ty waived off by ref­er­ee Michael Lon­don when vet­er­an winger Ker­ry Joseph went down in­side the area.

At the oth­er end of the field, Joseph was again de­nied by the frame in the 56th minute, hit­ting the near up­right, with De­fence Force goal­keep­er Kevin Gra­ham and his de­fend­ers left strand­ed by a neat Akeem Red­head pass in­to the area.

And from the re­bound, sub­sti­tute Sean Coop­er spilled high and wide from just in­side the area.

A minute lat­er Tou­s­saint flashed an ef­fort just wide of the far up­right, and the tal­ent­ed at­tack­er did so again in the 65th minute as the Reynold Car­ring­ton-coached club, backed by hun­dreds of trav­el­ling sup­port­ers, pressed for the equlis­er.

Then in the 71st minute Phillip pulled off an ex­cel­lent save for coach Reynold Car­ring­ton's side, keep­ing out a low strike by Bel­grave, who should have done bet­ter when Ker­ry Joseph played a Se­bro cross in­to his path.

A minute lat­er, Franklyn went from hero to vil­lain af­ter be­ing shown a straight red card by ref­er­ee Michael Lon­don in the 72nd minute for a foul on Point Fortin sub­sti­tute, Kelvin Mod­este.

And ten min­utes from time, Ross Rus­sell Jr spilled wide with Phillip at his mer­cy af­ter rac­ing on­to a Ker­ry Joseph pass.

How­ev­er, the "Teteron Boys", with three match­es in hand, will tem­porar­i­ly put their league ti­tle de­fence on the back burn­er as they to trav­el to Ja­maica to­mor­row, ahead of fix­tures for the 2014 Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Cham­pi­onship first round.

De­fence Force are one of two teams that will rep­re­sent T&T in the re­gion­al tour­na­ment, which al­so serves as the Caribbean qual­i­fy­ing phase to the CON­CA­CAF Cham­pi­ons League.

The T&T Pro League cham­pi­ons will con­test Group Three of the CFU Club Cham­pi­onship host­ed in Ja­maica from March 21-25, against Guyana's Al­pha Unit­ed, Suri­name's Sport­ing Verenig­ing Notch, and home team Habour View FC.

Mean­while, last sea­son's Pro League run­ners-up, Cale­do­nia, will con­test Group Two dur­ing the same dates against Sportive de Mire­bal­ais of host coun­try Haiti, In­ter Mo­en­go­tapoe of Suri­name and Ja­maica's Wa­ter­house FC.

Group One will be con­test­ed in Puer­to Ri­co, with Cen­tro Domin­gui­to of the Nether­lands An­tilles, Unite Saint Rosi­enne of Cu­ra­cao, Cay­man Is­lands out­fit Bod­den Town and home team Baya­mon FC mak­ing up that group.

The win­ner of each group will ad­vance to the semi­fi­nal round with au­to­mat­ic berth, Va­len­cia FC of Haiti.

But, to­day, ac­tion con­tin­ues with a dou­ble-head­er at Cou­va when Point Fortin has a chance to re­bound when it faces bot­tom of the ta­ble St Ann's Rangers from 6 pm and W Con­nec­tion comes up against San Juan Jabloteh two hours lat­er.

Stand­ings

Teams P W D L F A Pts

W Con­nec­tion 17 11 4 2 32 12 37

Cen­tral FC 18 8 8 2 34 17 32

North East Stars 18 9 5 4 21 12 32

Point Fortin Civic 17 9 2 6 26 17 29

De­fence Force 15 8 2 5 29 21 26

Po­lice 17 7 3 7 23 26 24

Cale­do­nia 17 5 6 6 24 21 21

Jabloteh 17 3 2 12 19 38 11

Rangers 18 1 0 17 12 56 3

RE­SULT

De­fence Force 1 (Glynn Franklyn 34th) vs Point Fortin Civic 0

TO­DAY'S FIX­TURES

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

St Ann's Rangers vs Point Fortin Civic, 6 pm

W Con­nec­tion vs San Juan Jabloteh, 8 pm