Reign­ing na­tion­al In­ter-Col cham­pi­on Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and neigh­bour East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary, two of four teams with per­fect records af­ter two match­es, meet on Wednes­day at Fa­ti­ma Col­lege ground on Mu­cu­rapo Road in Port-of-Spain in what is ex­pect­ed to be a heat­ed 'Mu­cu­rapo Road' der­by when Round Three of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Pre­mier Di­vi­sion kicks off at 3.30 pm.

Af­ter two match days, three-time cham­pi­ons Na­pari­ma Col­lege coached by for­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er Travis Mul­raine leads the 16-team ta­ble with a max­i­mum of six points on goal dif­fer­ence from the for­mer T&T 'Strike Squad' stand-out Hut­son Charles-coached Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, San Juan North, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Jer­ry Moe, and East Mu­cu­rapo, guid­ed by an­oth­er ex-na­tion­al play­er Dale Saun­ders.

Fa­ti­ma start­ed the sea­son in em­phat­ic fash­ion with a 7-0 maul­ing of for­mer na­tion­al League and In­ter-Col cham­pi­ons St An­tho­ny's fol­lowed by a more sub­dued 1-0 win away at Spey­side on Sat­ur­day, while East Mu­cu­rapo has bat­tled its way to two nar­row wins, 2-1 over Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, and a shock 1-0 tri­umph over reign­ing cham­pi­on St Bene­dict's Col­lege at the Ma­haica Oval in Point Fortin, and go­ing in­to to­day's en­counter, both coach­es were op­ti­mistic of their team's chances of com­ing away with yet an­oth­er win to stay un­beat­en.

De­spite com­ing up against his al­ma mater, Charles said there is no room for sen­ti­ment as he is ea­ger to lift more sil­ver­ware af­ter last sea­son’s suc­cess­ful cam­paign which saw Fa­ti­ma lift its first In­ter-Col crown since 2005: “For me and my as­sis­tant coach, Rus­sell Sut­ton, com­ing up against East Mu­cu­rapo will al­ways be a bit­ter-sweet mo­ment be­cause while we would like to see them do well in the com­pe­ti­tion as past play­ers, we al­so have jobs to do as coach­es at Fa­ti­ma and when our play­ers take to the field they will have one task at hand, which is to come away with all three points."

Charles added: “I know coach Saun­ders (East Mu­cu­rapo) will al­so have vic­to­ry on his mind as well as he al­so has a job to do, and we will all be putting friend­ships aside for the match and fo­cus­ing on our re­spec­tive teams.

"We have both start­ed the sea­son with two wins each and even though we got the bet­ter of them by six or sev­en goals last year, we ex­pect this time around the match-up to be a much clos­er bat­tle, one which we hope to come out vic­to­ri­ous in as well."

Saun­ders was al­so quick to salute the work done by his close friend Charles, say­ing: "Fa­ti­ma has been do­ing very well since their re­turn to the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion and has been one of the

most con­sis­tent teams in re­cent years. So, I told my guys, this match-up will pro­vide a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to see have far we have come as a team and how much more work we need to put in as the sea­son goes along to be among the con­tenders.”

Re­flect­ing on the per­fect start to the sea­son, Saun­ders a for­mer East Mu­cu­rapo play­er him­self and coach at the now-de­funct Joe Pub­lic FC said he was very sat­is­fied with the ef­fort of his play­ers.

"The boys have been re­spond­ing well to what we have asked of them. We have a lot of the guys re­turn­ing from last year, so this year they are a more ex­pe­ri­enced group and with the right at­ti­tude and dis­ci­pline, we are hop­ing to be much more con­sis­tent in terms of our play and re­sults in gen­er­al."

Down South, Na­pari­ma, com­ing off a 3-2 road win over St Mary's Col­lege af­ter thrash­ing Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary 10-0 at home re­turns to its base at Lewis Street, San Fer­nan­do for a clash with fel­low south­ern­ers Pleas­antville Sec­ondary, with the lat­ter yet to pick up a point af­ter suf­fer­ing heavy de­feats against the 'Saints', 8-0 and in the last round, a 5-0 thrash­ing from San Juan North.

San Juan North, mean­while, faces a tricky en­counter away to Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la, and coach Moe will look to in­flu­en­tial mid­field­ers, Lin­dell Swen and Nathan Quashie and strik­er Ja­heem Dan­clair to steer his team to vic­to­ry over the Shawn Coop­er-coached Pre­sen­ta­tion, which af­ter a goal­less draw at Ari­ma North Sec­ondary eked out a 1-0 win over Mal­ick Sec­ondary on Sat­ur­day.

Over in To­ba­go, de­fend­ing Pre­mier Di­vi­sion ‘Big-Four’ cham­pi­ons St Bene­dict’s Col­lege finds it­self in a very un­fa­mil­iar po­si­tion of be­ing with­out a point af­ter two match­es, fol­low­ing its first day 3-4 loss away to San Juan North and the loss at the hands of East Mu­cu­rapo, with star man Der­rel Gar­cia set to de­part for Spain on Fri­day, will be keen to give him a win­ning send-off against host Bish­op's High School, al­so with­out a point at the Ply­mouth Recre­ation Ground, Ply­mouth.

In oth­er match­es to­day, Mal­ick Sec­ondary wel­comes Ch­agua­nas North to its Park Street Recre­ation Ground, Mor­vant, St An­tho­ny's Col­lege goes af­ter its first points of the cam­paign in a home en­counter with Spey­side Sec­ondary in West­moor­ings, pro­mot­ed duo, St Mary's Col­lege and Ari­ma North Sec­ondary clash at Ser­pen­tine Road, St Clair, and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East hosts Queen's Roy­al Col­lege in Trinci­ty.

Wednes­day's match­es

Bish­op's High vs St Bene­dict's Col­lege, Ply­mouth Rec. Grd, Ply­mouth, 3.30 pm

East Mu­cu­rapo Sec vs Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Grd, Mu­cu­rapo Rd, 3.30 pm

Mal­ick Sec vs Ch­agua­nas North Sec, Park Street, Mor­vant, 4 pm

Na­pari­ma Col­lege vs Pleas­antville Sec, Lewis Street, San F'do, 4 pm

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege vs San Juan North, Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la, 4 pm

St An­tho­ny's Col­lege vs Spey­side, St An­tho­ny's Col­lege Grd, West­moor­ings, 3.30 pm

St Mary's Col­lege vs Ari­ma North Sec, St Mary's Col­lege Grd, Ser­pen­tine Rd, 4 pm

Trin­i­ty Col­lege East vs QRC, Trin­i­ty Col­lege East Grd, Trinci­ty, 4 pm

Cur­rent SS­FL Boys' Pre­mier Di­vi­sion stand­ings:

Pl*Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

1*Na­pari­ma Col­lege*2*2*0*0*13*2*6

2*Fa­ti­ma Col­lege*2*2*0*0*9*0*6

3*San Juan North*2*2*0*0*9*3*6

4*East Mu­cu­rapo*2*2*0*0*3*1*6

5*Pre­sen­ta­tion*2*1*1*0*1*0*4

6*St Mary's Col­lege*2*1*0*1*10*3*3

7*Mal­ick*2*1*0*1*3*2*3

8*QRC*2*1*0*1*2*3*3

9*Ch­agua­nas North*2*1*0*1*1*10*3

10*Spey­side Sec*2*1*0*1*3*2*3

11*Ari­ma North*2*0*2*0*1*1*2

12*Trin­i­ty East*2*0*1*1*2*3*1

13*St Bene­dict's Col­lege*2*0*0*2*3*5*0

14*Bish­op's High*2*0*0*2*1*4*0

15*St An­tho­ny's Col­lege*2*0*0*2*0*8*0

16*Pleas­antville*2*0*0*2*0*13*0