Sub­sti­tute Kay­dion Gabriel scored a goal and set up an­oth­er as a re­vamped North East Stars un­der new coach An­gus Eve made a win­ning start to the 2012/2013 Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League. Stars whipped last year's third place fin­ish­er and Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­onship hold­ers, Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA 3-1, on Fri­day night. This was in the sec­ond match of the "Su­per Fri­day" dou­ble-head­er at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo to kick off the 2012/2013 sea­son. In the ear­li­er match, the de­fend­ing league cham­pi­on De­fence Force got a goal each from strik­ers De­vorn Jorsling and Richard "Sha­ka" Roy, the league top­scor­ers in the past two sea­sons to hold off a spir­it­ed St Ann's Rangers, 2-1. In yes­ter­day's lone en­counter Todd Ryan scored a 47th minute penal­ty and sub­sti­tute Ka­reem Per­ry in the 87th minute for Po­lice to shut-down last year's run­ner-up T&TEC, 2-0 at the same venue.

How­ev­er, on the night, it was Eve's Stars' which made the biggest im­pres­sion on the par­ti­san crowd with for­mer San Juan Jabloteh and So­ca War­riors strik­ers, Cor­nell Glen and Ker­ry Bap­tiste lead­ing the San­gre Grande-based club at­tack. But ear­ly on de­spite en­joy­ing the bet­ter of the ex­changes in the first 45 min­utes, Stars' which al­so fea­tured off-sea­son sign­ings Kevon Vil­laroel, Ka­reem Moses, Eli­jah Man­ners, Jayson Joseph and goal­keep­er Cleon John in its start­ing line-up, failed to break down the slug­gish look­ing Cale­do­nia which had the ben­e­fit of play­ing two match­es al­ready this sea­son in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League. Six min­utes in­to the sec­ond-half, Stars fi­nal­ly get a de­served go-ahead item Glen wrong-foot­ed de­fend­ers Aquil Sel­by and Nu­ru Muham­mad at the top of the 18-yard, made some space for him­self on his less fan­cied left foot and fired a shot back across the out­stretched Glen­roy Samuel in­to the bot­tom left-hand cor­ner of the goal for 1-0 score­line.

Not sat­is­fied with his team's 1-0 lead a re­laxed look­ing Eve on the Stars'touch-line in­tro­duced the nip­py Gabriel for the work­man-like Jean-Luc Rochford, a for­mer Cale­do­nia play­er in the 61st minute and with­in four min­utes he set up Bap­tiste in­side the area for an easy fin­ish and a 2-0 lead. Against the run of play, Cale­do­nia with for­mer In­dia-based Den­sill Theobald back in its line-up was gift­ed a chance to get back in­to the match af­ter de­fend­er Joseph was ad­judged by ref­er­ee Neil Brizan, to have shoved Cale­do­nia left­back Wal­ter Moore to the ground as the two play­ers con­test­ed a pass from Ja­mal Gay. From the re­sult­ing spot-kick, Ka­reem Joseph eas­i­ly con­vert­ed to cut the lead in half at 2-1 but de­spite their late ef­forts, Cale­do­nia could not sal­vage a point as Gabriel found the tar­get, four min­utes in­to time added on, to the de­light of the club's trav­el­ling sup­port­ers and its coach. In the night's open­er, for­mer Eng­land-based strik­er Hec­tor Sam missed a glar­ing chance to put Rangers ahead when he failed to con­nect clean­ly with a left sided cen­tre from Cameron Ro­get. Rangers was then made to pay in the 32nd minute when goal­keep­er Zane Cok­er could on­ly par­ry a low left sided cross from the live­ly Ak­lie Ed­wards on­to the on­rush­ing Jorsling and two min­utes lat­er Cok­er was at fault again, as he need­less­ly bun­dled over Ross Rus­sell Jr in the 18-yard box for a penal­ty which was con­vert­ed by Roy. Sam made amends for his ear­ly miss with a clin­ic fin­ish in­to goal­keep­er Kevin Gra­ham's far post with 17 min­utes left in the match, but in the end the "Teteron Boys" held on for a nar­row vic­to­ry.

Re­sult

Yes­ter­day:

Po­lice 2 (Todd Ryan 47th pen, Ka­reem Per­ry 86th) vs T&TEC 0.

Fri­day:

De­fence Force 2 (De­vorn Jorsling 32nd, Richard Roy 34th pen) vs Rangers 1 (Hec­tor Sam 73rd).

North East Stars 3 (Cor­nell Glen 51st, Ker­ry Bap­tiste 66th, Kay­dion Gabriel 90+4th) vs Cale­do­nia 1 (Ka­reem Joseph pen)