NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

With three rounds of match­es left to play it is still any­body’s guess which two teams from Group A will qual­i­fy for the Na­tion­al League semi­fi­nal play­offs of the Tiger Tanks Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Pre­mier Di­vi­sion.

Go­ing in­to to­day’s match­es fol­low­ing a break of 15-days for the Group A teams due to the last round of match­es be­ing post­poned due to in­clement weath­er on Oc­to­ber 5, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and St Bene­dict’s Col­lege share the lead on the eight-team ta­ble with ten points each from four match­es, one ahead of de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Na­pari­ma, win­ners of four of the past six league ti­tles while the duo of St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege and Spey­side Sec­ondary, both have six points each and still with an out­side chance of qual­i­fi­ca­tion as well.

To­day, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege coached by Hut­son “Bar­ber” Charles will be con­fi­dent of tak­ing an­oth­er gi­ant step to­wards ce­ment­ing their semi­fi­nal spot when they en­ter­tain Spey­side Sec­ondary at Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Ground, Mu­cu­rapo while the Ran­dolph Boyce-coached St Bene­dict’s will host cel­lar-placed St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, who were in ac­tion on Sat­ur­day, suf­fered a 3-0 loss to Pleas­antville, at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va from 4 pm.

Fur­ther South, Na­pari­ma’s ti­tle de­fence could well hinge on the out­come of its in­ter­est­ing match-up with St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege at Na­pari­ma Col­lege ground, Lewis Street, San Fer­nan­do from 3.40 pm while in the first match at Cou­va, Pleas­antville Sec­ondary and Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary, both with three points, clash with rel­e­ga­tion im­pli­ca­tions a ma­jor point.

Group B will re­sume on Sat­ur­day, with San Juan North Sec­ondary and Co­ca-Co­la In­ter-Col hold­ers Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do hav­ing al­ready se­cured the two semi­fi­nal spots with a max­i­mum of 18 points each from their re­spec­tive six match­es to date and one round left to be com­plet­ed when they face off for a top spot on Sat­ur­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo from 3.30 pm.

How­ev­er, at the oth­er end of the ta­ble, Moru­ga Sec­ondary with one point in six match­es, Mal­ick Sec­ondary with four, and East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary with six points will all be play­ing for their sur­vival.

Moru­ga cur­rent­ly oc­cu­pies the au­to­mat­ic rel­e­ga­tion spot and will need to se­cure a big win over Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege at home to have any chance of avoid­ing the drop, while East Mu­cu­rapo just needs to avoid de­feat against Mal­ick in the open­er at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, to con­demn its op­po­nent to the play­off with the Group A sev­enth-placed fin­ish­er which will de­ter­mine the third team to be de­mot­ed back to their Zon­al Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion for next sea­son.

The new for­mat of the 16-team Pre­mier Di­vi­sion sees the teams di­vid­ed in­to two groups of eight teams for one round of round-robin com­pe­ti­tion, at the end of which the top two in each pool will ad­vance to the crossover semi­fi­nals on Oc­to­ber 21 ahead of the fi­nal, four days lat­er.

Both the semi­fi­nals and fi­nal are slat­ed for ei­ther the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo or the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

The bot­tom-placed team in each pool will be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly rel­e­gat­ed and will be joined by the losers of the play­off be­tween the two teams to fin­ish sec­ond from the bot­tom in their re­spec­tive groups.

To­day’s match­es

Group A

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege vs Spey­side High, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Grd, Mu­cu­rapo Road, 3.40 pm

Na­pari­ma Col­lege vs St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, Na­pari­ma Col­lege Grd, Lewis St, San F’do, 3.40 pm

Pleas­antville Sec vs Cara­pichaima East, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 2 pm

St Bene­dict’s Col­lege vs St Au­gus­tine Sec, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 4 pm

Lat­est stand­ings

Group A

Teams P W D L F A Pts

1. Fa­ti­ma 4 3 1 0 18 2 10

2. St Bene­dict’s 4 3 1 0 15 1 10

3. Na­pari­ma 4 3 0 1 19 3 9

4. St An­tho­ny’s 4 2 0 2 6 7 6

5. Spey­side 4 2 0 2 7 11 6

6. Pleas­antville 4 1 0 3 3 9 3

7. Cara­pichaima East 4 1 0 3 5 25 3

St Au­gus­tine 4 0 0 4 5 20 0

Group B

Teams P W D L F A Pts

1. San Juan North 6 6 0 0 26 2 18

2. Pres (San F’do) 6 6 0 0 14 2 18

3. Trin­i­ty East 6 3 0 3 10 5 9

4. QRC 6 2 1 3 13 16 7

5. Ch­agua­nas North 6 2 1 3 7 20 7

6. East Mu­cu­rapo 6 2 0 4 9 13 6

7. Mal­ick 6 1 1 4 7 14 4

8. Moru­ga 6 0 1 5 3 17 1