NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Cana­di­an-born Cav­al­ry FC strik­er Mal­colm Shaw and Du­ane Muck­ette of lo­cal cham­pi­ons AC Port-of-Spain scored two goals each as the T&T So­ca War­riors got their 2026 FI­FA World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign back on track with an em­phat­ic 7-1 blowout of Ba­hamas at the St Kitts and Nevis Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Cen­tre, Bas­seterre, yes­ter­day.

The win fell just shy of T&T's biggest-ever World Cup qual­i­fy­ing mar­gin of a win, an 8-0 trounc­ing of Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in 1996.

Com­ing off a dis­ap­point­ing 2-2 home draw with Grena­da in their Group B open­er of the sec­ond round of Con­ca­caf Qual­i­fiers at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day night, the An­gus Eve-coached So­ca War­riors were des­per­ate to come away with three points.

And as ear­ly as the sixth minute T&T stamped their au­thor­i­ty on the match, with Shaw, one of sev­en changes to the start­ing team from the match against the Spice Boys, col­lect­ing a short pass from Muck­ette, be­fore cool­ly slot­ting a right-foot­ed ef­fort past goal­keep­er Amard Adder­ley low to his right for a 1-0 lead.

Five min­utes lat­er, Alvin Jones made it 2-0 for the So­ca War­riors beat­ing Adder­ley to his left from the penal­ty spot af­ter Mex­i­can ref­er­ee Mar­co Or­tiz had no choice but to whis­tle for a foul by de­fend­er Alex­iou Cartwright on T&T's Tris­ton Hodge who had made a surg­ing run in­to the left side of the 18-yard box.

Against the run of play, Ba­hamas al­most found a way back in­to the con­test when mid­field­er Michael Massey robbed T&T's An­dre Ram­per­sad of the ball just out­side the 18-yard box and un­leashed a dip­ping right-foot­ed long-range ef­fort, how­ev­er, goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith was alert to the dan­ger and pushed the ef­fort over­bar for a cor­ner.

Pa­cif­ic FC strik­er Re­on Moore should have made it 3-0 for T&T in the 26th minute but af­ter weav­ing his way through the Ba­hamas de­fence, he failed to hit the tar­get off his weak­er left foot while falling back­wards.

Two min­utes be­fore the half-time in­ter­val Moore fed an un­marked Muck­ette a pass just out­side the 18-yard box, and with time and space, he placed a right-foot­ed fin­ish in­to the bot­tom right cor­ner for a 3-0 ad­van­tage.

The So­ca War­riors were not done with their first-half scor­ing and on the stroke of half-time, T&T scored their finest goal of the evening so far when Jones slot­ted in a pass to Moore back­heeled a pass in­to the path of Shaw who slipped the ball to his left to an un­marked Muck­ette to blast home past a hap­less Adder­ley for a com­mand­ing 4-0 cush­ion.

On the re­sump­tion, T&T with debu­tant Stef­fen Yeates see­ing lots of the ball in mid­field picked up from where they let off in the first half with an un­marked Shaw miss­ing a chance to make it 5-0 when he head­ed over bar from a left-sided cen­tre.

Shaw then had a right-foot­ed blast par­ried down by Adder­ley in the 54th minute as the So­ca War­riors tried to add to their tal­ly against Ba­hamas.

How­ev­er, two min­utes lat­er it was 5-0 when Hodge re­leased a through pass for an over­lap­ping Yeates in­side the left-hand side of the 18-yard box and his cut back from the by­line was stabbed home from close range by Moore on the first post.

At the oth­er end of the field, Smith who was main­ly a spec­ta­tor on the night was called in­to ac­tion with a low save to his left to keep out an at­tempt from Jordin Wil­son in the 58th minute.

The speedy Shaw fi­nal­ly com­plet­ed his dou­ble in the 66th minute, run­ning on­to a smart­ly weight­ed pass from Moore, hold­ing off his de­fend­er and fir­ing past Adder­ley on his left foot in­to the bot­tom right cor­ner of the goal. He was re­placed soon af­ter by vet­er­an Kevon "Show­time" Wood­ley, 37, the lead­ing scor­er in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I Di­vi­sion with 16 goals in 13 match­es.

Wood­ley who scored in his first two T&T se­nior team ap­pear­ances last month in back-to-back match­es against Guyana, al­so al­most added his name to the score­sheet in the 72nd, but his right-foot­er from the edge of the 18-yard box sailed over bar.

An­oth­er sub­sti­tute, Dan­taye Gilbert, 19, who plies his trade with Jong PSV in Hol­land al­most capped off his se­nior team de­but with a goal but his right-foot­ed ef­fort on a fast break just missed sneak­ing in at the far post.

Sev­en min­utes from the fi­nal whis­tle, Ja­maican-based winger Nathaniel James, ex­tend­ed the lead to 7-0, elud­ing de­fend­er Jean Ry­ka and fir­ing home past Adder­ley on the near post.

De­spite be­ing out­played for the en­tire con­test Ba­hamas man­aged to get a con­so­la­tion item when Pe­ter Wood Jul­mis was on spot to tap home a re­bound af­ter Smith did well to block a close-range dri­ve from Nahum John­son.

With the win, which equalled T&T's sec­ond biggest-ever World Cup qual­i­fy­ing mar­gin of vic­to­ry (6-0 over Pana­ma in 2000), the So­ca War­riors moved to the top of the five-team Group B stand­ings with four points from two match­es, one more than Cos­ta Ri­ca who slammed St Kitts & Nevis 4-0 on Thurs­day at home.

Cos­ta Ri­ca will have a chance to re­claim the top spot when they play away to trav­el to face Grena­da to­mor­row in St George’s while St Kitts & Nevis wel­comes Ba­hamas on Tues­day at Warn­er Park Foot­ball Sta­di­um in Bas­seterre from 4 pm to close out the in­ter­na­tion­al win­dow.

Re­sult:

T&T 7 (Mal­colm Shaw 6th, 66th, Du­ane Muck­ette 43rd, 45th, Alvin Jones 14th pen, Re­on Moore 56th, Nathaniel James 84th) vs Ba­hamas 1 (Pe­ter Wood Jul­mis 87th).

T&T: 22. Den­zil Smith (GK), 2. Aubrey David (capt), 3. Tris­ton Hodge, 5. Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, 6. Du­ane Muck­ette (11. Michel Poon-Angeron 67th), 12. Stef­fen Yeates (15. Dan­taye Gilbert 77th), 13. Re­on Moore (9. Nathaniel James 67th), 16. Alvin Jones, 17. Justin Gar­cia, 18. An­dre Ram­per­sad (10. Re­al Gill 77th), 19. Mal­colm Shaw (23. Kevon Wood­ley 67th).

Subs not used: 14. Shan­non Gomez, 8. Noah Pow­der, 4. Daniel Phillips, 20. Ajani For­tune, 7. Ryan Telfer, 1. Christo­pher Biggette (GKr), 21. Aaron Enill (GK),

Ba­hamas: 23. Amard Adder­ley (GK), 2. Alex­iou Cartwright (,15. Jor­dan Cheetham 78th), 4. Jonathan Miller, 5. Michael Massey (19. Reuben Edge­combe 78th), 6. Jean Ry­ka, 7. Quin­ton Carey (Bran­don Adder­ley 64th), 8. Evelt Jul­mis, 9. Pe­ter Wood Jul­mis, 10. Les­ley St Fleur (capt), 12. Jordin Wil­son (,13. Nahum John­son 64th), 16. William Gar­diner (3. Du­ane Bene­by 82nd)

Subs: 18. Deron Fer­gu­son, 17. Kai Perez, 20. Day­lan Rus­sell