De­spite play­ing un­beat­en for the sea­son in Tier I of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League, De­fence Force as­sis­tant coach De­vorn Jorsling is brac­ing for their tough­est test to date.

His com­ment comes on the heels of the up­com­ing show­down be­tween his Tier I unit and the De­fence Force Tier II team, which qual­i­fied for the fi­nal of the FCB Cup on Wednes­day at a venue and time still to be de­cid­ed.

On Wednes­day at the Ari­ma Velo­drome, the De­fence Force Tier II team record­ed their fourth vic­to­ry over Tier I cam­paign­ers by edg­ing Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice 3-2 in the open­ing game of a dou­ble­head­er, cour­tesy of a brace from Shaquille Hold­er.

The Law­men fin­ished third in the sea­son, which earned them the right to con­test the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Shield, along­side last year's de­throned cham­pi­ons, AC Port-of-Spain. Po­lice, fresh from their re­cent qual­i­fi­ca­tion, jumped ahead in the con­test when Eli­jah Bel­grave found the nets in the 28th minute.

How­ev­er, their cel­e­bra­tion was cut short al­most im­me­di­ate­ly by a Shaquille Hold­er equalis­er (28th), putting both teams back in the same start­ing po­si­tion. And be­fore the half­time could have been com­plet­ed, the Po­lice­men poked their noses in front for a sec­ond time from the boot of Kwe­si Allen in the 40th minute for a 2-1 ad­van­tage.

Lat­er, the De­fence Force Tier II out­fit, who de­feat­ed Tier I cam­paign­ers FC Phoenix, San Juan Jabloteh, and Prison Ser­vice FC on their way to the round of four, would leave it late for the equalis­er for a sec­ond time. And when it came, it came from the boot of Hold­er six min­utes from the stroke of reg­u­la­tion time (84th minute).

How­ev­er, with the game head­ing for a penal­ty shoot-out, Dwight Quin­tero, who was pushed out of the De­fence Force Tier I team to make way for oth­er play­ers, came to the res­cue, when he fired the win­ner in the 90+5 minute, spark­ing wild cel­e­bra­tion among their play­ers and fans of an un­like­ly spot in the fi­nal of the FCB Cup.

Their op­po­nents, as ex­pect­ed, turned out to be their col­leagues who had won the ti­tle the last time the play-off was held —the De­fence Force Tier I out­fit, who lat­er clob­bered Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed 3-0.

Af­ter­wards, coach Jorsling told the me­dia that with so many Tier II play­ers bid­ding for places on the Tier I team, it would in­ten­si­fy their chal­lenge in the fi­nal.

"I think this will be the tough­est game for the sea­son for De­fence Force, be­cause know­ing a lot of the guys on the Tier II team, they still be­lieve they can play at the Tier I lev­el, so they will have a point to prove. They have a lot of qual­i­ty play­ers, both youth and ex­pe­ri­enced," Jorsling said.

"In terms of ex­pe­ri­ence, they have Ja­mali Gar­cia, who was cap­tain of the Tier I team last sea­son, they have Rodell El­cock, they have Hashim Ar­cia, Dwight Quin­tero, and Shaquille Hold­er. They al­so have some young, ex­cit­ing youths in terms of Phillip Tin­to and Ca­den Tre­strail.

"I be­lieve it will be the hard­est game of the sea­son. I be­lieve most of the Force will be root­ing for the Tier II team be­cause that's just how it is. In sport, peo­ple tend to back the un­der­dogs, but we will be pre­pared as usu­al to go out and bat­tle for the ti­tle and re­main un­beat­en for the sea­son," Jorsling not­ed.

For the fi­nal, the De­fence Force Tier I team will be with­out key de­fend­ers Justin and Isa­iah Gar­cia, as well as mid­field­ers Kevin Moli­no and Kai­him Thomas, as well as strik­er Isa­iah "Bon­go" Lea­cock. Jorsling said it is nev­er easy when you don't have such qual­i­ty play­ers, but he be­lieves they have the cal­i­bre to take them over the fi­nal line on Wednes­day.

"Dur­ing the pre-sea­son, coach Den­sill Theobald and I em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the squad, so it's a big op­por­tu­ni­ty for the guys to re­al­ly step up, take the op­por­tu­ni­ty up and even show­case them­selves for the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) tour­na­ment. We have that com­ing up pret­ty soon. You can't re­place men like Moli­no and Isa­iah Lea­cock, but we have a lot of qual­i­ty, and I am ex­pect­ing us to come out vic­to­ri­ous."

RE­SULTS

De­fence Force 3 (Je­lani Pe­ters 6th, Re­on Moore 52nd, Dar­ius Ol­liviera 54th) vs Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed 0

De­fence Force Tier II 3 (Shaquille Hold­er 28th, 84th, Dwight Quin­tero 90+5) vs Po­lice 2 (Eli­jah Bel­grave 28th, Kwe­si Allen 40th)