Mar­cus Joseph scored his sec­ond hat-trick for W Con­nec­tion as the Savonet­ta Boys flexed their mus­cles with a ruth­less 7-1 win over Pro League hold­ers North East Stars to win a fourth Char­i­ty Shield on Fri­day night at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va.

Joseph, who joined Con­nec­tion last sea­son, fired the Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er coached side in front on eight min­utes, beat­ing goal­keep­er Glen­roy Samuel af­ter con­trol­ling a through pass in­side the box to give his team the start it was seek­ing.

It was the start of a very mis­er­able night for Samuel who was forced in­to ac­tion three times in as many min­utes, in­clud­ing tip­ping over an ef­fort from for­mer T&T youth mid­field­er Kier­ron Ma­son.

Samuel con­ced­ed again on the half-hour mark when Joseph latched on to a left side cross from de­fend­er Kurt Fred­er­ick to hand Con­nec­tion a 2-0 cush­ion.

Lat­er Con­nec­tion's Suri­name in­ter­na­tion­al Dim­itri Apai made it 3-0 as the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Char­i­ty Shield win­ners by in­ter­cept­ing a Jabari Brath­waite back pass and rolling the ball in­to an open North East Stars net. Three min­utes af­ter the break Zo­ran Vranes' team was again pun­ished for an even more dis­as­trous back pass from the half line, which Joseph, the diminu­tive strik­er in­ter­cept­ed and slot­ted past a hap­less goal­keep­er for his hat-trick.

The last time Joseph scored a hat-trick was in a 12-0 maul­ing of Tamana Unit­ed in the first round of last sea­son’s FA Tro­phy Tour­na­ment last Sep­tem­ber.

North East, sport­ing an en­tire­ly changed team un­der the Yu­gosla­vian since win­ning the T&T Pro League ti­tle last year, failed to match their op­po­nents on of­fence. The Stars lone item came mid­way through the sec­ond half from Jaden Prow­ell from the penal­ty spot, just mo­ments af­ter he was brought down in the area.

By then, how­ev­er, Pow­ell's team was four goals be­hind and need­ed a mir­a­cle to pull off the win.

Af­ter­wards, Kadeem Corbin con­trolled a Daniel Di­az cross to lash home Con­nec­tion’s fourth goal past Samuel in the 51st minute, while Briel Thomas' half-vol­ley with the out­side of his right boot made it 6-1 soon af­ter.

Adan Noel lat­er put the ic­ing on the cake with his goal late in the game to com­plete the de­mo­li­tion job.