Na­pari­ma Col­lege’s Ro­mario Ash­er and Caleb Boyce of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do trad­ed words, ahead of their open­ing clash for the Tiger Tanks Cup in the Tiger Tanks Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va from 4 pm, on Fri­day.

Both teams are con­fi­dent to take top ho­n­ours in the cur­tain-rais­er of the re­vamped sea­son af­ter a two-year ab­sence due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Na­pari­ma cen­tre-back Ash­er, who has se­nior team ex­pe­ri­ence with Moru­ga FC when they played in the As­cen­sion League, ear­li­er this year, said: “We look­ing to de­stroy ‘Pres’ as usu­al. We are com­ing to work hard and play well, play for the coach and win as much tro­phies as we can, which most like­ly will be all.”

Boyce, who will like­ly cross paths with Ash­er, dis­agrees.

The for­ward re­mind­ed the ‘Naps’ de­fend­er that: “We are the cham­pi­ons and we’re go­ing to con­tin­ue to de­fend the cham­pi­onship. ‘Naps’ is not go­ing to de­stroy us ob­vi­ous­ly.”

While both play­ers dis­agree on the out­come of the sea­son’s open­er, they both agree that they are hap­py to be back play­ing, rep­re­sent­ing their re­spec­tive schools.

Ash­er said: “It is a very good feel­ing and very ec­sta­t­ic be­cause for the past two years we were shut down and forced to stay in­side. I’m glad for the op­por­tu­ni­ties to legal­ly play foot­ball and for it to be broad­cast­ed for me to show­case my tal­ents as well.”

While Ash­er was play­ing with Moru­ga (As­cen­sion League) and Club San­do (Tiger Tanks Cup), Boyce chose not to play with any­one.

“Per­son­al­ly, I’ve just been train­ing by my­self to per­fect the im­per­fec­tions,” the for­ward said.

The Tiger Tanks Cup marks the start of the sea­son, with the league kick­ing off on Wednes­day with ac­tion in both groups in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion.