EFFORTVILLE, Clarendon — After their spirited 1-0 home victory against leaders Harbour View on Sunday, Humble Lions’ pre-season vision of retaining a place in next season’s Digicel Premier League (DPL) seems well intact, but coach Christopher Bender and his big-spending boss Mike Henry are still not satisfied.

They want more surety.

As a result, the former coach of the national women’s team is keen on signing one of the most feared strikers in local football — Denzil Watson to his team so as to give his overworked striker Kevin Mighty some much needed help upfront.

Additionally, in what could be the signing of the season, the Clarendon-based club is looking to lure out-of-favour Portmore United goalkeeper Shawn Sawyers and his teammate Cornelius Henry to Effortville. It is also understood that August Town’s Arjuran Brown will be making the trek to Clarendon.

While Bender was a bit reserved in giving the details, the chairman of the club Mike Henry was forthright.

Henry said on Sunday: “I can confirm Sawyers, Cornelius Henry, Arjuran Brown and Denzil Watson, and that’s just off the top of my head. But they are about seven players (plus) I’m signing a couple youngsters from the lower league too and I’m moving the Under-21 down and up, but I’m not releasing any of my players.”

Three of the mentioned players, Sawyers, Henry and Watson, who were at the game on Sunday, also confirmed that they will be heading to the club, but would not speak on the record, saying that negotiations are still in progress. But it is understood that Watson has already started to workout with the squad.

“Yes he has started to train, but that does not say he is here yet because that is left to Harbour View and how they respond to the request,” said Bender, when asked about Watson’s involvement in the team’s training sessions.

Sawyers, who has been with Portmore for over 12 years, is still considered by many to be the best goalkeeper in the island, but has fallen victim to Portmore United’s thrust to rebuild their team — giving younger players more playing time.

Sawyers, who has over 20 caps for Jamaica, has played about six of Portmore’s 20 games so far this season.

Henry, who is the nephew of former national utility player Christopher Dawes, played high school football at Glenmuir High where he won the triple crown in 2004, before moving to the sunshine city from another Clarendon club, Sporting Central Academy, which was been coached by his uncle at the time.

Watson also played at Glenmuir in the late ’90s before joining Portmore United, who were then Hazard United based in Clarendon. He then made a move to the Trench Town-based Boys’ Town, which brought him to national prominence.

At Boys’ Town he scored a number of goals and even seemed to be a favourite of the home supporters which made it a surprise when he was traded to Harbour View late last season. At Harbour View, the dreadlocked player struggled to get any first team action.

His last notable appearance for the former two-time champions was against St Georges when he came on as a second half substitute to score twice to hand his team a 2-0 win at Lynch Park.

Humble Lions, who are in their debut season of the DPL, have entertained all season with their hard-running and aggressive brand of football, but have not being able to get three points consistently, which many believe is as a result of them being new to the league.

But with this influx of experienced players, Bender thinks the team will have more depth; however, the former August Town and Hazard United coach believes that the journey has just began.

“It should contribute to the team overall, not just Mighty alone… we are trying to improve the team”, he said.

“But I am not one to get ahead of myself, I am more pragmatic. It is going to be difficult from now on, as to how we integrate the new players and not just only that, how the players acclimatise (as) not every player can leave a club and come into a new team.

“We have to see how best they can fit into the system because we don’t want players to come here and not be committed to the cause (because) it is very difficult to play here seeing that it is a community team. So, it will take time, hopefully they can acclimatise and integrate quickly so that they will be able to assist the team,” reasoned Bender in a post-game interview with the Observer on Sunday.

Bender concluded that it was not a difficult task attracting these big name players to the club. “No, for some reason these are players who I have coached before and usually players would want to follow coaches around at some point in time.”