De­fend­er Michael Ed­wards fired in two late sec­ond-half goals to lead Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cham­pi­ons, De­fence Force to a com­mand­ing 3-0 sec­ond-leg shut-out of Bermu­dans' Dandy Town Hor­nets at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la on Sat­ur­day night.With the win, De­fence Force se­cured the home-and-away se­ries 4-1 on ag­gre­gate to set up a sec­ond round Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Cham­pi­onship se­ries against Guyana's Mile­rock.

Mile­rock earned a shock 2-1 win away to Suri­name's In­ter Mo­en­go­tapoe at the An­dre Kam­per­veen Sta­di­um af­ter los­ing the home-leg 1-0 to ad­vance 2-2 on the away goals rule.But down at Mara­bel­la, De­fence Force, a two-time CFU Club cham­pi­on and one-time Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League win­ner, made cer­tain of a sec­ond round spot with a su­pe­ri­or show­ing af­ter draw­ing the first-leg 1–1 at the Bermu­da Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion Field, Hamil­ton on March 10 thanks to a Sean Nar­cis equalis­er.Nar­cis proved a thorn in Hor­nets side again as he opened the scor­ing af­ter 13 min­utes while Ed­wards got his dou­ble in the 74th and 87th minute to com­plete the vic­to­ry.

Af­ter the match an elat­ed Ross Rus­sell, coach of De­fence Force said he was hap­py with his team's dis­play while a bit dis­ap­point­ed they did not score more goals."From the kick-off we showed we were a much bet­ter team and dur­ing the match we were very dom­i­nant, so that was pleas­ing," said Rus­sell.Look­ing ahead to the sec­ond round clash against the Guyanese club, Rus­sell said his staff has al­ready be­gan prepa­ra­tions."We know a bit about Mile­rock and some of their play­ers and we have asked for a DVD of their match, but that has been re­fused," he said.

De­fence Force last won the CFU Club ti­tle in 1987, two years af­ter se­cur­ing its first crown.The 'Teteron Boys" are al­so the on­ly Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean coun­try to have lift­ed the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League crown, in 1985 with a 2–1 home-and-away ag­gre­gate win over Hon­duran club, CD Olimpia in the fi­nal.The sec­ond round is sched­uled for the weeks of April 12–14 and April 22–24, while the semi­fi­nal will take place in the T&T from May 25 with the fi­nal and third-place games set for four days lat­er.The semi­fi­nal win­ners and third placed club will qual­i­fy for the 2011/2012 Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League. (NS)