Mar­cus ‘Lobo’ Joseph en­joyed a bril­liant night at the of­fice net­ting an ear­ly brace as hosts W Con­nec­tion held off top Ja­maican side Ar­nett Gar­dens to a hard-fought 2-1 win in their Group A clash of the 2018 Con­ca­caf Caribbean Club Cham­pi­onship on Fri­day at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

The T&T in­ter­na­tion­al struck two fine strikes in a space of thir­teen min­utes in­clud­ing the fastest goal of the tour­na­ment to date at one minute 41 sec­onds, but missed out on com­plet­ing the hat-trick late af­ter for­mer San Juan Jabloteh play­mak­er Fa­bi­en Reid had pulled a goal back from the penal­ty spot for the Ja­maicans on the hour mark.

The win, cou­pled with Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Atleti­co Pan­to­ja’s (4 points) com­fort­able 3-0 win over Haiti’s Re­al Hope Foot­ball Acad­e­my (3 points) to take the group lead in the ear­li­er game at Foot­ball's new home in Cou­va, lift­ed Con­nec­tion (3 points) two spots off the bot­tom in­to sec­ond by goal-dif­fer­ence af­ter a dis­ap­point­ing 1-0 open­ing loss to the Haitians last Wednes­day.

Con­nec­tion, the mul­ti­ple-time for­mer Caribbean cham­pi­ons, will next face Atleti­co Pan­to­ja in the group’s fi­nal game from 8pm tonight at the same venue. Re­al Hope and bot­tom of the ta­ble Ar­nett Gar­dens (1 point) will com­plete their group play from 5pm on the same day.

The top two teams will ad­vance to the Caribbean fi­nal round in May which will de­ter­mine Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League and Con­ca­caf League berths.

Con­nec­tion head coach Stu­art Charles Fevri­er, in an ef­fort to bounce back af­ter its open­ing loss in which Jeudy John­son had fired the Haitians in front af­ter ex­act­ly two min­utes, start­ed with­out Wednes­day’s at­tack­ing trio of Kadeem Corbin, Akeem Gar­cia and Kennedy Hink­son.

Fevri­er in­stead opt­ed to push Joseph high­er in­to the at­tack along­side Suri­name in­ter­na­tion­al Dim­itri Apai, mak­ing his first ap­pear­ance of the tour­na­ment, and gave for­mer Shi­va Boys Col­lege at­tack­er Quinn Rod­ney his pro­fes­sion­al de­but on the op­po­site flank, while hard-man Briel Thomas start­ed in the mid­dle. And it all paid off.

Joseph, lead­ing the spear at the tip, opened the scor­ing with less than two min­utes played when he raced be­tween two de­fend­ers to steer a low left side Kurt Fred­er­ick cross past Ar­nett Gar­dens goalie Damion Hy­att.

Joseph then cush­ioned the hosts 2-0 on thir­teen min­utes with a left-foot­ed blast from out­side the left of the box af­ter mak­ing light work of winger Ke­mal Mal­colm.

The Ja­maicans, with­out cap­tain and ex-Con­nec­tion play­er Oneil Thomp­son through sus­pen­sion, nev­er looked flat­tened al­though con­ced­ing twice ear­ly on.

Ar­nett Gar­dens had forced Con­nec­tion cus­to­di­an Ju­lani Archibald in­to three first half saves in­clud­ing ac­ro­bat­i­cal­ly putting be­hind a Mar­vin Mor­gan shot on the half hour mark and a point blank save to de­ny Mal­com on the stroke of the half.

Ar­nett Gar­dens’ re­solve re­sult­ed in Guyana ref­er­ee Glad­wyn John­son rul­ing a hand­ball against the hosts and al­though Archibald did get glove to the ball, the Con­nec­tion shot-stop­per was un­able to stop it from end­ing at the back of his net.

RE­SULTS

Group A (In T&T)

Wednes­day 31 Jan­u­ary 2018

Club Atleti­co Pan­to­ja 0 vs Ar­nett Gar­dens 0, at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um;

W Con­nec­tion 0 vs Re­al Hope Foot­ball Acad­e­my 1 (Jeudy John­son 2’), at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

Fri­day

Re­al Hope FA 0 vs Atleti­co Pan­to­ja 3 (Luis Es­pinal 35’, Ar­man­do Mai­ta 40’, 59’), at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

W Con­nec­tion 2 (Mar­cus Joseph 2’, 13) vs Ar­nett Gar­dens 1 (Fa­bi­en Reid 61’), at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

Tonight's Match­es

Ar­nett Gar­dens FC (JAM) v Re­al Hope FA (HAI), 5pm, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

W Con­nec­tion FC (T&T) v Club Atleti­co Pan­to­ja (DOM), 8pm, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

RE­SULTS

Group B (In Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic)

Wednes­day

Cen­tral FC (T&T) v Port­more Unit­ed FC (JAM), 5pm, Es­ta­dio Cibao, San­ti­a­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

At­lanti­co FC (DOM) v Rac­ing FC (HAI), 8pm, Es­ta­dio Cibao, San­ti­a­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Fri­day

Rac­ing FC (HAI) v Cen­tral FC (T&T), 5pm, Es­ta­dio Cibao, San­ti­a­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic;

At­lanti­co FC (DOM) v Port­more Unit­ed FC (JAM), 8pm, Es­ta­dio Cibao, San­ti­a­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Tonight's Match­es

Port­more Unit­ed FC (JAM) v Rac­ing FC (HAI), 5pm, Es­ta­dio Cibao, San­ti­a­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic;

At­lanti­co FC (DOM) v Cen­tral FC (T&T), 8pm, Es­ta­dio Cibao, San­ti­a­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.