FLORENCE HALL, Trelawny — Despite becoming Village United’s first victim of the 2011-12 Red Stripe Premier League competition, Portmore United made the First End-of-round-Final where they will meet defending champions Tivoli Gardens next Sunday.

Second half goals from Dino Williams and Oliver Trail gave Village United a 2-0 win in the final game of the first round at the Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium (TMPS), but draws from the teams immediately behind Portmore allowed the former champions to qualify for the incentive final.

Portmore completed the first round on 18 points, one behind Tivoli Gardens, who were held 0-0 by Reno at Frome.

It was a festive mood at the TMPS as the home team earned their first win to move to five points — all coming at home — and it was the first time they were scoring more than one goal in any game this season.

A relieved Kendale Mercury, the Village United coach, told the Observer that the win was only a matter of time. “We have been fighting all season long and we got the reward with two goals today.”

Mercury also said he was always confident in his team’s defence, but said the losses could have been from his players’ giving up due to frustration at times.

He described the win as “sweet” and admitted that the coming on board of new sponsors Red Stripe and the promise of payments to the players had also contributed to the better performance from the team.

Portmore’s Calvin Lewis blamed the team’s loss on a poor second half performance and said the absence of several senior players in the defence had also left them exposed with “inexperienced players”.

After missing the target with a powerful header from a free kick late in the first half, Williams shot Village into the lead just five minutes after the resumption when the Portmore goalkeeper Gariece Campbell got a hand to a powerful shot, but failed to stop it from rolling into the corner of the goal.

The goal came form a well worked build-up down the right side involving Orlando McBayne and Shavar Campbell.

McBayne was the supplier again in the 65th minute when he dribbled to the right flag before cutting the ball back into the path of Trail, who obliged by hammering it into the goal, giving Campbell no chance.

Throwing caution to the wind, the Portmore coaching staff made a triple change, putting on all offensive players and despite pushing the Village team back for a sustained period, failed to get past goalkeeper Keith Hamilton.

McBayne should have scored a third for Village in the 79th minute when another slick move tore open the Portmore defence, but with the goalkeeper at his mercy, he pulled the shot wide.