Former champions Charlie Smith made a winning start in Group E of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/FLOW Manning Cup competition with a 2-1 beating of Mona High at the latter’s home field yesterday.

Tyrick Reid in the 43rd minute and Kemar James in the 88th were the scorers for Charlie Smith, while Milton Harris got the reply for Mona from the penalty spot in the 63rd minute.

With the win, Charlie Smith assumed pole position on three points, joined by Waterford High, who clipped Holy Trinity 1-0 in their contest in Portmore. The Clan Carthy vs Kingston High fixture was cancelled as a result of a late withdrawal by the latter.

Winning Charlie Smith Coach Jerome Waite was pleased with the result and is promising improved performances with a few marquee players still to come in.

“It is a lot of new youngsters; this is the first time they are playing top-flight schoolboy football and they gave a good account of themselves and they will get better as the season progressed. A few players didn’t play today (yesterday) and we can always add to this team to make it better, so it’s not to worry and the progress will be evident going forward,” he told reporters in a post-game interview.

His counterpart Winston Taylor, though also missing a few good players, expressed disappointment at his team’s performance in the first half.

“We gave as good as we got for most of the game and I think in the second half we played extremely well, but first half we showed them a lot of respect, so we didn’t come into the game until late. We missed four marquee players, so that was a renovated team that we saw today and we expect to get better,” he noted.

It was a scrappy display by both teams in the early exchanges when the contest eventually got under way, after a 30-minute delay due to administrative issues on the part of the hosts. Charlie Smith settled first and should have gone ahead on numerous occasions, but faulty shooting coupled with good glove work in part by Jordan Hoilett denied them.

Garfield Rennicks got the first look at goal, but his header from Ronaldo Wright’s right-sided corner was tipped over by Hoilett. The resulting corner this time taken on the left side by Omario Fisher swirled dangerously towards goal, but Hoilett again came up big to push the ball over the top.

Mona were rarely allowed to leave their quarters, despite firing two well-struck warning shots to momentarily keep the Charlie Smith unit on its toes. However, the nippy Zemario Sinclair led another Charlie Smith assault and was presented with a glorious opportunity after leaving Hoilett for dead, but was later dispossessed by a recovering defender.

The opening goal eventually came when Fisher’s cross from the left channel was slotted into an empty net by Reid, after the ball eluded Hoilett and his defenders.

Mona came out more purposeful on the resumption and were back on level terms three minutes past the hour mark when Harris stepped up and calmly converted from the spot. The spot kick was awarded after Njerie McKenzie was brought down in the area by custodian Shamarley Clayton.

Both teams went for the go-ahead goal in an end-to-end battle and it inevitably came two minutes from time courtesy of James, who slotted home from deep inside the box following a goal mouth melee.

In Group A, Excelsior blanked Tarrant High 4-0, while the lone Group B fixture to involve Eltham was cancelled following the withdrawal of Spanish Town.