WAL­TER AL­IBEY

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

T&T'S So­ca War­riors and the Ja­maica's Reg­gae Boyz played to a goal­less draw in the sec­ond in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match at the 'Of­fice' in Kingston, Ja­maica last night.

The re­sult con­fined the home team to a 1-0 loss in the two-match se­ries, but both coach­es An­gus Eve from T&T and the Reg­gae Boyz' Heimir Hall­grims­son would have been sat­is­fied with what they saw ahead of the fi­nal rounds of match­es of the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League to be played lat­er this month.

Ja­maica, fol­low­ing their 1-0 loss in the open­ing match on Sat­ur­day, looked more pur­pose­ful from the start but they lacked the fi­nal touch in the fi­nal third. In spite of this, how­ev­er, it was the War­riors who cre­at­ed the more dan­ger­ous chances, and at one point it took the bril­liance of sub­sti­tute goal­keep­er Ke­mar Fos­ter to pre­vent an­oth­er T&T win.

In search of a vic­to­ry, the Ja­maicans took ear­ly con­trol of the mid­field where the Chelsea duo of Du­juan Richards and Omari Hutchin­son were joined by Lamar Walk­er and De­mario Phillips to cre­ate a force to be reck­oned with ear­ly, how­ev­er, they strug­gled to break down the res­olute T&T de­fence, mar­shalled by Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham.

T&T need­ed some luck in the 21st minute when the speedy Re­on Moore, the scor­er of the lone T&T goal in the first match, led a T&T build-up when he picked out Jo­mal Williams on the right side. The lat­ter, con­front­ed at the edge of the box, re­leased for the on­rush­ing Alvin Jones whose dri­ve from out­side sailed over the cross­bar.

Ten min­utes lat­er Williams was the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of an­oth­er Moore pass on the right side, but af­ter he skil­ful­ly turned past his mark­er, his pow­er­ful low dri­ve took a de­flec­tion be­fore go­ing wide.

Ja­maica would have them­selves to blame for not tak­ing the lead in the 35th minute. Dem­nario Phillips broke the T&T off­side trap from a telling Walk­er-lift­ed pass, and though he had the first touch to put the ball in po­si­tion for the shot, Phillips sur­pris­ing­ly turned away from the goal, as the Ja­maicans of­fered no shot at goal.

Three min­utes be­fore the stroke of half-time, Du­juan Richards carved his way in­side the T&T de­fence on the left, but from an acute an­gle, his low dri­ve was pushed wide by Mar­vin Phillip, as the teams went to the halfway in­ter­val with the scores at ze­ro.

Up­on the re­turn to play, the Ja­maicans again took con­trol of the mid­field, dom­i­nat­ing the pos­ses­sion, but they could not get their shots on tar­get or past Phillip. De­mario Phillips ben­e­fit­ted from a de­fen­sive blun­der in the T&T de­fence, but his at­tempt at goal sailed wide.

With the teams al­so us­ing the match­es to scout new play­ers, Eve would have been hap­py with sub­sti­tute Kaile Au­vray who proved to be a thorn in the Ja­maica side up­on his en­try.

In the 74th minute, Au­vray used his speed to get past three de­fend­ers be­fore be­ing hacked down on top of the Ja­maican area. And four min­utes lat­er, the War­riors were lucky not to eke out a win when Moore out­paced his mark­ers to get in­side of the Ja­maican dan­ger area, how­ev­er, his low left-foot­ed shot was fist­ed wide by Fos­ter in the 78th minute.

Au­vray again used his speed to telling ef­fect down the right flank be­fore de­liv­er­ing a pin-point cross to Moore in­side the Ja­maica box but Moore's first touch let him down, as the teams fin­ished the en­counter goal­less.

T&T TEAM:

Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 4. Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, 6. Ka­reem Ri­ley, 7. Noah Pow­der, 10. Kadeem Corbin, 12. Jameel Nep­tune, 13. Re­on Moore, 16. Alvin Jones, 17. Justin Gar­cia, 18. Matthew Woo Ling, 20. Jo­mal Williams.

Subs

Je­lani Fe­lix, 3. Jo­evin Jones, 5. An­dre Ray­mond, 8. Michel Poon Angeron, 9. Nathaniel James, 11. Jamoul Fran­cois, 14. John-Paul Rochford, 15. Kaile Au­vray, 19. Que­si We­st­on, 21. Den­zil Smith, 22. Adri­an Fon­cette (GK), 23. Jesse Williams, 24. Justin Sadoo

JA­MAICA TEAM:

Ri­car­do Thomas, 7. Lamar Walk­er, 8. De­mario Phillips, 12. Du­juan Richards, 13. Jah­mali Waite (GK), 17. Jah­saun An­glin, 18. Omari Hutchin­son, 19. Adri­an Mari­ap­pa, 20. Dex­ter Lem­bik­isa, 24. Jamoi Topey, 25. Collin An­der­son

Subs

, 1. Ke­mar Fos­ter (GK), 2. Al­wayne Har­vey, 3. Dwayne Atkin­son, 4. Tyler Roberts, 6. Richard King, 9. Trivante Stew­art, 10. Rav­el Mor­ri­son, 11. Jour­dain Fletch­er, 14. Sue-Lae Mc­Calla, 15. Os­hane Sta­ple, 21. De­lano Splatt, 22. Fitzroy Cum­mings, 23. Hutchin­son (GK).