Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers duo, Kadeem Corbin and Re­al Gill, scored sec­ond-half goals as T&T se­nior men’s foot­ball team laboured to a 2-0 win over Saint Mar­tin in a friend­ly match at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on Sun­day night.

The match was the first of 2023 for T&T coach An­gus Eve as he looks to­wards the re­sump­tion of the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League (CNL) fix­tures away to the Ba­hamas on March 24, and three days lat­er at home to Nicaragua at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let on March 27.

In a match of very few re­al goalscor­ing chances, Corbin scored the open­er in the 64th minute, his first goal as a se­nior in his sec­ond cap, be­fore Gill got the oth­er on his se­nior team de­but in the 86th minute to give coach Eve a win­ning start to the cal­en­dar year.

Speedy winger, Re­on Moore had T&T's best chances of the first half in an oth­er­wise unin­spir­ing 45 min­utes against the vis­i­tors.

Moore's first chance came af­ter on­ly five min­utes when he out­ran right-back Dono­van Fils-Aime but fired his ef­fort straight at goal­keep­er Jor­dan Eti­enne from a tight an­gle, with team­mates Corbin and Jo­evin Jones, both un­marked across the six-yard box.

And a minute be­fore the half-time whis­tle, de­fend­er Justin Gar­cia played a ball over the top for Moore, who held off the chal­lenge of Fils-Aime, be­fore round­ing goal­keep­er Eti­enne, on­ly to take the ball over the by­line and miss­ing out on the chance to score in­to an open goal.

At the oth­er end, vet­er­an goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip, 38, stand­ing in his 89th in­ter­na­tion­al match had lit­tle to do as his de­fence mar­shalled by Gar­cia, Le­land Archer, and Jameel Nep­tune kept the vis­i­tors who were led in at­tack by Dani­lo Cocks at bay, and with­out any re­al ef­fort on tar­get.

Both teams be­gan the sec­ond-half much live­li­er and it was the host with the first chance to take the lead in the 61st through mid­field­er Ne­veal Hack­shaw, how­ev­er, his weak head­er at the back post from a cor­ner by sub­sti­tute John-Paul Rochford was eas­i­ly col­lect­ed by Eti­enne.

The go-ahead for T&T even­tu­al­ly came slight­ly against the run of play in the 64th minute with Corbin run­ning on­to a ball that was charged down by Hack­shaw from Saint Mar­tin's Wil­fried Dal­mat, be­fore he wrong-foot­ed de­fend­er Mick­ael Clio, and fired in­to the bot­tom right-hand cor­ner of the goal with the ball tak­ing a slight de­flec­tion off the de­fend­er.

Saint Mar­tin al­most drew lev­el in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion sev­en min­utes lat­er through Kaile Au­vray, how­ev­er, his dip­ping long-range left-foot­ed ef­fort skimmed the cross­bar with Phillip beat­en.

With eight min­utes left on the clock, sub­sti­tutes Du­ane Muck­ette and Re­al Gill both then wast­ed clear-cut chances to seal the vic­to­ry.

First, Muck­ette af­ter be­ing sent clear of the de­fence by Ro­chord fired straight at Eti­enne, and from the re­bound and with the goal un­guard­ed Gill dragged his ef­fort wide to the dis­may of the spec­ta­tors.

Gill made amends three min­utes lat­er and scored on his se­nior team de­but when he was on spot to tap home from less than four yards out a right-sided cen­tre from Jabari Mitchell, who had re­placed Moore three min­utes ear­li­er as well.

The So­ca War­riors will now re­sume prepa­ra­tions for their Na­tions League match­es as they cur­rent­ly sit in the sec­ond spot in the four-team League B Group A stand­ings with nine points from four match­es, one be­hind Nicaragua while the Ba­hamas is third with three points, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines bot­tom of the ta­ble with one point.

This was af­ter T&T went un­der to Nicaragua 2-1 in their CNL open­er be­fore win­ning their next three match­es, 1-0 against Ba­hamas, and 2-0 and 4-1 over St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Coached by for­mer Guade­loupe in­ter­na­tion­al Stephane Au­vray, Saint Mar­tin pro­vid­ed a good test for the most­ly lo­cal­ly-based T&T squad, com­ing on the heels of some im­pres­sive re­sults last year.

These in­clude a 1-1 draw in the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League C Group B three-team se­ries with St Kitts and Nevis, and draw­ing 0-0 and los­ing 3-0 to Aru­ba to sit bot­tom of their pool with two points from three match­es.

Their biggest re­sult was a 2-0 vic­to­ry over the Ba­hamas in a friend­ly in March 2022 and they will al­so be us­ing the match as part of their prepa­ra­tions for their fi­nal Con­ca­caf Na­tions League en­coun­ters against St Kitts and Nevis on March 23.

Yes­ter­day's re­sult:

T&T 2 (Kadeem Corbin 64th, Re­al Gill 87th) vs Saint Mar­tin 0

T&T start­ing team:

1. Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 3. Jo­evin Jones (10. Du­ane Muck­ette 56th), 4. Jameel Nep­tune (19. Ross Rus­sell Jr 56th), 6. Le­land Archer, 7. Nathaniel Gar­cia (14. John-Paul Rochford 56th), 8. Kevon God­dard, 9. Kadeem Corbin (18. Re­al Gill 67th), 13. Re­on Moore (Jabari Mitchell 83rd), 15. Ne­veal Hack­shaw, 16. Alvin Jones (2. Isa­iah Gar­cia 67th), 17. Justin Gar­cia.

Subs not used: 5. Wes­lie John,12. Dar­nell Hospedales, 20. Justin Sadoo, 21. Isa­iah Williams (GK), 22. Adri­an Fon­cette, 23. Jesse Williams, 24. Michael Poon-Angeron, 25. Kai­him Thomas.

Coach: An­gus Eve

Saint Mar­tin team: 1. Jor­dan Eti­enne (GK), 2. Je­re­my Pe­ter­son Du­toya (12. Alain Cordero 72nd), 3. Stephan Varso­vie (13. Se­bastien Ven­thou-Du­maine 72nd), 4. Dono­van Fils-Aime, 5. Mick­ael Clio, 6. Yoann Vardin, 7. Dar­ren Pompe, 8. Randy Gentes, 9. Dani­lo Cocks, 10. Wil­fried Dal­mat (14. Yan­nick Bel­le­chas­se 72nd), 11. Kaile Au­vray.

Subs not used: 15. Christo­pher De­speine, 16. Se­bastien Raphose (GK), 18. Stephen La­guerre, 19. Kear­ney Chance.

Coach: Stephane Au­vray