MANNING Cup title favourites St George’s College (STGC), aided by one of the best fields in the island and the astute mind of coach Neville Bell, have been playing beautiful football, or jogo bonito as the Portuguese would call it.

Whether you are a fan of the school or not, once you love attractive football, you are going to love St George’s College because of the fluid passing style of their game.

The ‘Light Blues’ of North Street are hunting their 23rd title, having last won the prestigious Manning Cup in 2012, and are heavy favourites this season.

The critics are searching for a chink in their armour, however, and having seen them lose twice to Innswood High and Denham Town in the first round of the Manning Cup, they believe STGC can be bullied out of their natural game.

But head coach Bell, who has led St George’s to five titles — 1992, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012 — has rubbished that theory.

“A lot of people say that this George’s team is a soft team… I have yet to see any team run over us. We are not soft, but we try to play the way I think we should play,” Bell pointed out after his team survived the hard-tackling St Jago High for the second time, winning 3-0.

“We are doing well, we are almost there (and) we haven’t won any titles yet. But I thought we played tough,” he reiterated.

“We have St Jago again on Saturday, which is the focus right now, but we thank God for the victory,” Bell said after the win over St Jago.

St George’s, who won the Walker Cup last year, will be hunting their first lien on the rich $1-million Flow Super Cup when they will come face to face with St Jago for the third time this season in the semi-final.

The Light Blues have lit up the schoolboy season with, if this was basketball, their triangle offence. The trio of captain Shevon Stewart, Alex Marshall and Gregory Messam Jnr have scored 44 of the 57 goals netted by St George’s in all competitions.

But there is a little worry in the camp with the injury to Stewart, which could seriously derail St George’s offensive machinery.

“Definitely, the groin problem looks serious. I actually knew about it before the start of the game; he got treatment and we thought he was OK,” said Bell, after he was forced to pull the dangerous Stewart during the match against St Jago on Tuesday.

Stewart had earlier scored arguably the best individual goal of the season when he flicked the ball over his head, befuddled the goalkeeper and left him on his buttocks before calmly slotting home with two defenders on the goal-line guarding the empty goal.

But there are more worries for the Light Blues: Dominic James, their calm and influential holding midfielder, is also nursing a groin injury and missed their last game.

“We lost Dominic James before the start of the game because of a groin injury also, so we are thinking about that and he will get some rest before Saturday,” revealed Bell.