Reign­ing Tier 1 cham­pi­on of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League, De­fence Force, were held to a goal­less draw by Ath­let­ics Club Port-of-Spain (AC PoS) on Sat­ur­day evening at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va.

The re­sult saw the cham­pi­ons share points with the team that fin­ished fourth last sea­son. Last sea­son, De­fence Force had de­feat­ed AC Port-of-Spain twice on their way to an un­beat­en league and cup dou­ble.

AC Port-of-Spain coach Gilbert Bateau is con­vinced that he has un­earthed weak­ness in the De­fence Force ar­mour, which will pos­si­bly earn them an­oth­er point or three when the teams meet for a sec­ond time in the fu­ture.

“Every team has flaws. De­fence Force is a very strong team, there is no doubt, but they too have flaws, and I have dis­cov­ered some of those flaws when they played against Mt Pleas­ant Acad­e­my in the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup. I have used that against them on Sat­ur­day to get a point, but I will not say more than that, be­cause we have to play them again in the League,” Bateau told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day.

The Army Coast-Guard Civil­ian Com­bi­na­tion team twice de­feat­ed the ‘Cap­i­tal City Boyz’, as AC Port-of-Spain is known, last sea­son, on their way to an un­beat­en sea­son for both the League and First Cit­i­zens Knock Out Cup. How­ev­er, in the sec­ond match of a dou­ble head­er, which fea­tured at­tacks on both sides, the usu­al­ly un­stop­pable De­fence Force at­tack could not pierce its way through the AC Port-of-Spain de­fen­sive struc­ture.

Bateau, who came in as a re­place­ment for Walt Nor­ie­ga, who has been locked in a bat­tle with the AC Port-of-Spain man­age­ment team over un­paid wages, told the me­dia he had to make sev­er­al changes in his struc­ture to hold the De­fence Force to achieve the one point, which he said should have been three points.

"We have been bat­tling the De­fence Force for years, and be­cause of the late prepa­ra­tion, we had to make ad­just­ments. We brought in Daneil Cyrus from Cale­do­nia AIA, as well as cen­tral de­fend­er Mario Williams, who played in Bar­ba­dos. In ad­di­tion to those changes, we used Nathan Lewis, who is nor­mal­ly known for be­ing de­struc­tive on the wide right, to play in a de­fen­sive po­si­tion, while us­ing lethal strik­er Shack­iel Hen­ry as a re­place­ment for Lewis on the wide right,” Bateau ex­plained, as­sur­ing that it is not about the play­er but rather about the role they’re asked to play in the in­ter­est of get­ting a re­sult for the team.

The "Cap­i­tal City Boyz" will next face San Juan Jabloteh, which suf­fered a thump­ing de­feat 4-0 to Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice on Fri­day. Bateau as­sured he has al­ready done his work on Jabloteh and al­ready knows how he is go­ing to play against them.

Mean­while, Prison Ser­vices FC came out on top in the first match of the dou­ble­head­er on Sat­ur­day, edg­ing Cale­do­nia AIA 3-2. Ains­ley Garzette hand­ed the prison of­fi­cers the ear­ly ad­van­tage in the ninth minute.

Then, four min­utes lat­er, Kevon Williams hand­ed the prison of­fi­cers a two-goal cush­ion in the 13th. But for­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er Keron Cum­mings pulled a goal back in the 30th minute be­fore the teams were ush­ered off for the half­time break. And with the lead 2-1 when the teams re­turned, Cale­do­nia AIA struck a sec­ond time, this time through Josi­ah Ed­wards, who lev­elled the score in the 47th minute, to give his team hope of a vic­to­ry.

But Je­re­mi­ah Vi­dale killed all hopes of a come­back when he found the nets in the 79th minute to as­sure his team of max­i­mum points.

Re­sults

De­fence Force 0 vs AC Port-of-Spain 0

Prison Ser­vices FC 3 (Ains­ley Garzette 9th, Kevon Williams 13th, Je­re­mi­ah Vi­dale 79th) vs Cale­do­nia AIA 2 (Keron Cum­mings 30th, Josi­ah Ed­wards 47th)