Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers, and Cen­tral FC both se­cured con­trast­ing wins in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League on Wednes­day night to stay in the hunt to se­cure a top-three po­si­tion by May 28 dead­line giv­en to the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion by CON­CA­CAF for qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the two re­vamped con­fed­er­a­tion club com­pe­ti­tions, name­ly the CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Club Shield, and the CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Cup.

The two com­pe­ti­tions are part of CON­CA­CAF’s new club ecosys­tem an­nounced in Sep­tem­ber 2021 and will serve as qual­i­fiers for Con­fed­er­a­tion-wide com­pe­ti­tions.

And on Wednes­day night, with Tiger Tanks Club San­do se­cur­ing a com­fort­able 3-1 win over Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA ear­li­er in the day led by a hat-trick from Nathaniel James to close the gap on lead­ers AC Port-of-Spain to one point, the pres­sure was on the oth­er clubs around them on the ta­ble to pick up full points in their match­es.

At the Phase II La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground, La Hor­quet­ta, the host Rangers were ea­ger to ex­act re­venge on AC PoS fol­low­ing their 2-1 last-minute loss to their ri­vals on Sun­day last at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar.

And the spec­ta­tors bare­ly had time to set­tle in­to their seats when Rangers went ahead in­side 49 sec­onds cour­tesy of a one-time vol­ley from Isa­iah Ray­mond on the near post past two de­fend­ers and a stunned goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip, off a cor­ner by Kai­him Thomas.

Ten min­utes it was Ray­mond again, this time fir­ing home through a crowd of play­ers af­ter AC PoS failed to deal with a threat­en­ing move by Rangers.

The game then looked over for the vis­it­ing league lead­ers AC PoS in the 32nd minute when

Thomas, the ar­chi­tect of Rangers’ open­er ex­tend­ed his team’s lead to 3-0, fir­ing past Phillip low to his right from about 25-yards out, af­ter be­ing put through by fel­low for­mer na­tion­al Un­der-20 team­mate Re­al Gill, who was mak­ing his re­turn to the start­ing line-up af­ter an in­jury lay-off.

How­ev­er, four min­utes be­fore the half-time in­ter­val, AC PoS was pro­vid­ed with a life­line by cap­tain Du­ane Muck­ette as he guid­ed a right-foot­ed shot in­to the top left-hand cor­ner of the net past the hap­less dive of goal­keep­er Jabari St Hillaire, off an as­sist from fel­low T&T in­ter­na­tion­al team­mate John-Paul Rochford, at the edge of the 18-yard box.

AC PoS then had a chance to nar­row the gap even fur­ther in the 65th minute when St Hillaire was whis­tled for a foul on strik­er Jo­moul Fran­cois by ref­er­ee Kwin­si Williams, how­ev­er, the Rangers cus­to­di­an re­deemed him­self by keep­ing out Muck­ette’s weak at­tempt low to his right.

It went from bad to worse for AC PoS six min­utes lat­er as Fran­cois, to earn his team an­oth­er penal­ty, threw him­self to the ground un­der a chal­lenge from Daniel David, and was shown a sec­ond yel­low card for sim­u­la­tion to leave his team to fight the rest of the way with ten men.

But as has hap­pened so of­ten in match­es, the ten men of AC PoS dug deep and were re­ward­ed with an­oth­er goalscor­ing chance, from the penal­ty spot af­ter mid­field­er Che Ben­ny was hacked down in the 18-yard by David, and this time Ben­ny stepped up and ri­fled home a left-foot­ed ef­fort off the hands of St Hilliare in­to the net to re­duce the deficit to 2-3.

AC PoS then had an­oth­er chance to snatch an un­like­ly share of the points, but Jay­don Prow­ell, the scor­er of the late goal to earn his team the win on Sun­day last, saw his ef­fort thwart­ed by an alert St Hillaire as the host held on for the win to climb to 25 points from ten match­es, in the third spot, lev­el with De­fence Force, and five adrift of AC PoS with two match­es in hand.

Up at the Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Sta­di­um, Ari­ma, for­mer In­dia-based T&T strik­er Willis Plaza scored in the 28th, and 66th min­utes af­ter Ri­car­do John’s 17th-minute open­er for Cen­tral FC in a 3-0 thump­ing of Pris­ons Ser­vice to ce­ment their hold on fifth spot with 22 points

Ear­li­er on Wednes­day, at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la, for­mer na­tion­al Un­der-20 strik­er Nathaniel James marked his re­turn from a one-match sus­pen­sion with a hat trick to fire Tiger Tanks Club San­do to a 3-1 thump­ing of Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA to push their tal­ly 29 points, one be­hind AC PoS.

The son of for­mer Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege stand-out Mark James, Nathaniel didn’t dis­ap­point as he net­ted in the 27th minute, 60th and 90+2 for a 3-0 cush­ion be­fore Phillip Tin­to got a con­so­la­tion item for Mor­vant Cale­do­nia.

In the open­ing match at La Hor­quet­ta, De­fence Force need­ed goals from Brent Sam five min­utes in­to time added-on at the end of the first half, and Jameel Coop­er in the 67th to come from be­hind twice and earn a share of the points with low­ly San Juan Jabloteh, which led twice through strikes from for­mer na­tion­al ‘Beach Soc­cer’ stand-out, Kevon ‘Show­time” Wood­ley, first in the 35th, and then 2-1 in the 49th minute, in his first start for his new club.

In the open­ing match at Ari­ma, W Con­nec­tion and Cunu­pia FC drew 1-1 while Po­lice FC was al­so held to a 1-1 draw by vis­i­tors Point Fortin Civic at the St James Po­lice Train­ing Bar­racks, Ground, St James

T&T was last rep­re­sent­ed at the Caribbean club com­pe­ti­tion in 2018 by for­mer re­gion­al pow­er­hous­es, and both for­mer win­ners, W Con­nec­tion (2006, 2009) and Cen­tral FC (2015 & 2016).

This was be­cause North East Stars, the 2017 T&T Pro League cham­pi­ons (now known as AC Port-of-Spain), and W Con­nec­tion, the 2017 T&T Pro League run­ners-up, were not al­lowed to com­pete in the 2019 CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Club Cham­pi­onship through no re­al fault of theirs, as TTFA did not prop­er­ly ex­e­cute its club li­cens­ing pro­gramme.