Nigel Si­mon

De­fence Force strik­er, De­von Jorsling fired in a 70th minute item to hand the So­ca War­riors a 1-0 win over host An­tigua and Bar­bu­da at the An­tigua Recre­ation Ground, St John's, yes­ter­day. The win was a wel­come re­lief for the Rus­sell Lat­apy-coached So­ca War­riors as it end­ed a three-match win­less streak. The streak in­clud­ed a 3�1 loss at home by Ja­maica on Au­gust 11; 3�0 away de­feat to Pana­ma on Sep­tem­ber 7 in Pana­ma City and a dis­ap­point­ing 0�0 draw away to Be­lize in Bel­mopan, eight days ago.

Pri­or to the three-match win­less streak, the So­ca War­riors had whipped An­tigua & Bar­bu­da 4-1 at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya on Wednes­day Ju­ly 21, with Jorsling scor­ing a dou­ble.

But this time around, play­ing the first match of a tri-na­tion se­ries which al­so in­volves St Lu­cia, the So­ca War­riors found the go­ing tougher and af­ter miss­ing a few chances fi­nal­ly got the de­served match win­ner from stand-in cap­tain Jorsling, who start­ed up front with na­tion­al Un­der-23 strik­er Ju­ma Clarance,who was on de­but.

Speak­ing af­ter the match, So­ca War­riors team man­ag­er David Muham­mad said it was an over­all much im­proved per­for­mance from their last out­ing. "We def­i­nite­ly played much bet­ter than we did against Be­lize and we are now look­ing for­ward to the match against St Lu­cia on Tues­day," said Muham­mad. The win over An­tigua & Bar­bu­da was the ninth for the So­ca War­riors in ten meet­ings be­tween both coun­tries and the first in St John's. On T&T's last vis­it to St John's back in 2005, the host came away with a 2�1 win. For yes­ter­day's match Lat­apy was forced to make sev­er­al late changes to his squad.

This af­ter bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic with­drew its sev­en play­ers due to Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League com­mit­ments lat­er this week.

The Joe Pub­lic play­ers who were in­clud­ed in the squad for the tri-na­tion se­ries in An­tigua & Bar­bu­da but were forced to with­draw were goal­keep­er, Mar­vin Phillip, Makan His­lop, Ka­reem Young, Car­lyle Mitchell, Ker­ry Bap­tiste, Hay­den Tin­to and Trent Noel. Called up in their place were na­tion­al Un­der-23 duo, Ja­mal Gay and Clarence along with Lester "Corn Curls" Pelti­er, An­tho­ny Wolfe, Kevin Gra­ham, Jesse Stew­art and Ker­ron "Ball Pest" Cum­mings. To­day, the So­ca War­riors will have a light work out ses­sion at the same venue ahead of to­mor­row's in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly with St Lu­cia at the same venue.

The So­ca War­riors will then re­turn home on Wednes­day be­fore fac­ing Guyana on Sun­day in George­town. Lat­apy's men will con­tin­ue their Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup prepa­ra­tion with two oth­er match­es, first at home on Oc­to­ber 6 against a yet to be named team and then, away to Ja­maica in Kingston on Oc­to­ber 10.

The clash with the Reg­gae Boyz will be the fi­nal match ahead of T&T's host­ing of the Sec­ond Round Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup qual­i­fy­ing group which will al­so in­volve Haiti from No­vem­ber 2 to 6. The top two teams from the four-team group will qual­i­fy for the Fi­nals to be con­test­ed in Ja­maica.

T&T squad

Kevin Gra­ham, Jan-Michael Williams, Ke­ston Williams, Kern Cu­pid, Ak­lie Ed­wards, Hughton Hec­tor, Daneil Cyrus, Jesse Stew­art, Jo­evin Jones, Ja­son Mar­cano, Ju­ma Clarence, Lester Pelti­er, Den­sill Theobald, Ataulla Guer­ra, De­von Jorsling, Kevon Carter, An­tho­ny Wolfe, Ker­ron Cum­mings.