Buoyed by their First Cit­i­zens Cup semi­fi­nal book­ings, Adams' Con­struc­tion San Juan Jabloteh and Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA will be hop­ing for a re­peat of for­tunes when they kick of their 2011/2012 Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cam­paigns to­day. Jabloteh, for­mer league cham­pi­ons and com­ing off a dis­ap­point­ing cam­paign last year will come up against St Ann's Rangers in the first match of a dou­ble-head­er at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya, from 5 pm. Two hours, lat­er Di­recTV North East Stars, will do bat­tle with Cale­do­nia. The four clubs on show to­day, should be fa­mil­iar with each oth­er, hav­ing faced off on quar­ter­fi­nal day three of the First Cit­i­zens Cup at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on Fri­day. On that day, Jabloteh edged Rangers 2-1, while Cale­do­nia blanked Stars 2-0 to se­cure places in Fri­day's First Cit­i­zens Cup semi­fi­nal sched­uled for Fri­day at Mu­cu­rapo.

How­ev­er, tonight, there are two dif­fer­ences, with the venue be­ing the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um ar­ti­fi­cial turf and this be­ing a league match, in which less risk maybe tak­en. Look­ing ahead to his team's sec­ond meet­ing with Jabloteh in five days, Rangers' coach An­tho­ny Streete said. "I think we're set this time to face Jabloteh. We will be more pre­pared for them and we would not be a man short for most of the game. I think we will be up for a more ex­cit­ing game. "I think the match [against Jabloteh last Fri­day] was an even match," he added. "We had the bet­ter ex­changes in the ear­ly stage but failed to cap­i­talise through strik­er Keon Trim."

Rangers de­fend­er Jevon Mor­ris was shown a di­rect red card five min­utes be­fore the half and had a penal­ty de­ci­sion over­turned and an­oth­er penal­ty saved by Jabloteh goal­keep­er Cleon John in the fi­nal 11 min­utes.

"I think it was an er­ror in the of­fi­ci­at­ing in the first in­stance when the penal­ty was over-ruled and we were giv­en a free-kick af­ter the lines­man ran to­wards the penal­ty box," con­tin­ued the Rangers coach. "I think we threw away the game with the failed penal­ty by Trent Noel."

Streete al­so had a pos­i­tive, cred­it­ing the per­for­mance of teenaged winger Shaquille Nes­bitt in the First Cit­i­zens Cup. Apart from fail­ing to win any of its two match­es in the First Cit­i­zens Cup tour­na­ment, the youth­ful Rangers squad was al­so edged out, 2-1 by W Con­nec­tion in its sea­son open­er on Sep­tem­ber 9 and will be des­per­ate to get a vic­to­ry un­der its belt. The San­gre Grande-based Stars, have suf­fered de­feats in their three match­es so far this sea­son against T&TEC, W Con­nec­tion (4-1) and Cale­do­nia and with the pres­sure mount­ing, coach Shur­land David is of the be­lief that his side will get it right against Cale­do­nia.

"We're in a hole right now and are just not putting the ball in the back of the net," said David

"How­ev­er, we are go­ing to con­tin­ue the fight be­cause the sea­son is still young hav­ing played just one League match and a knock­out tour­na­ment. So we still have four knock­outs and the League to play for. "At least we have been im­prov­ing in our play be­cause we have been get­ting the chances," he con­tin­ued. "But, it's just to start putting the ball in the back of the net." David is con­fi­dent that pre-sea­son mar­quee sign­ing Stern John, who scored on de­but against W Con­nec­tion in a 4-1 de­feat on Sep­tem­ber 20, but failed on a cou­ple chances against Cale­do­nia, will find form with his new club: "It's ear­ly still, but he would start get­ting it right soon."