De­throned T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League’s Tier 1 cham­pi­ons AC Port of Spain got a dou­ble strike from Haile Beck­les to romp to a con­vinc­ing 4-0 vic­to­ry over Prison Ser­vices FC at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va on Sun­day.

Still, with the win, the Cap­i­tal City Boyz are like­ly to miss out on one of the top three spots that would as­sure them a place in ei­ther the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup or the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Shield, sched­uled to take place lat­er this year. “Right now we need Cen­tral FC and Club San­do to do us a favour and beat Po­lice. Cen­tral FC seems like they will take the sec­ond po­si­tion, and if they hold off Po­lice, it would be good for us. Hav­ing said that, we al­so must win all our oth­er match­es, but Po­lice must lose for us. I think we can get the bet­ter of Jabloteh al­so,” Walt Nor­ie­ga, the AC Port of Spain coach, said.

En­ter­ing the match in the fifth po­si­tion on 30 points, the win­ning re­sult could not lift AC Port of Spain fur­ther, with lead­ers and cham­pi­ons De­fence Force the on­ly team to be as­sured of one of three spots (the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup) to date. The bat­tle for sec­ond and third seems to be es­cap­ing AC Port of Spain, with MIC Cen­tral FC Re­boot in sec­ond with 40 points, Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice in third on 36 points, and San Juan Jabloteh in fourth on 35 points and three rounds of match­es to go.

With 33 points cur­rent­ly, AC Port of Spain could on­ly reach 42 points, which would re­quire the Cen­tral Sharks, Jabloteh and the Law­men to lose at least one or two of their re­main­ing match­es.

Nor­ie­ga said his team is now find­ing it­self and los­ing key play­ers Michel Poon Angeron, mid­field­er Du­ane Muck­ette and Che Ben­ny in the ear­li­er part of the sea­son. “We’re now start­ing to play the game we are ac­cus­tomed to, but still the young play­ers, such as Michael Chaves, will get it right.”

The Cap­i­tal City Boyz will next play San Juan Jabloteh, a match which can go in any di­rec­tion. Nor­ie­ga told Gu­yardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that since the ex­it of Der­rel ‘Zoom Zoom’ Gar­cia, the San Juan men ap­pear to have been fiz­zling out a bit, al­though play­ers like Lin­dell Sween and Eli­jah Seechan have been lead­ing the way. I am con­fi­dent that our charges will have the ex­pe­ri­ence to get past the young­sters of Jabloteh,” Nor­ie­ga said.

On Sun­day, Liam Burs fired the Cap­i­tal City Boyz ahead eas­i­ly in the 19th minute, and Fa­ti­ma Col­lege’s dead­ly at­tack­er, Michael Chaves, gave them a two-goal cush­ion three min­utes lat­er. Still, it was the hero­ics of Beck­les who stole the spot­light in the match, the tal­ent­ed play­er scor­ing in the 40th and 71st min­utes to con­firm the three points that took them to 33 points in 19 match­es.

Mean­while, Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers and FC Phoenix shared the points in a 0-0 tie in the oth­er match at the Cou­va fa­cil­i­ty. It meant both teams stayed in the eighth and ninth po­si­tions on the 12-team stand­ings, with the thought of a Con­ca­caf spot well out of their reach.

RE­SULTS

AC Port of Spain 4 (Liam Burns 19th, Michael Chaves 22nd, Haile Beck­les 40th, 71st) vs Pris­ons Ser­vice 0

Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers 0 vs FC Phoenix 0

No*Teams*P*W*L*D*GF*GA*GD*PTS

1*De­fence Force FC*19*17*0*2*70*17*53*53

2*MIC Cen­tral FC RE­BOOT*19*13*5*1*49*27*22*40

3*Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC*19*11*5*3*57*36*21*36

4*San Juan Jabloteh*19*10*4*5*41*25*16*35

5*Ath­let­ic Club POS*19*9*4*6*38*24*14*33

6*Club San­do FC*19*8*7*4*30*21*9*28

7*Cale­do­nia AIA*19*8*8*3*31*39*-8*27

8*Ter­minex La Hor­quet­ta Rangers*19*3*7*9*29*34*-5*18

9*FC Phoenix*19*4*10*5*22*36*-14*17

10*Prison Ser­vice FC*19*3*11*5*22*38*-16*14

11*FC Ea­gles*19*3*14*2*17*72*-55*11

12*Point Fortin Civic FC*19*2*16*1*15*48*-33*7