FALMOUTH, Trelawny — Harmony FC edged Coopers Pen FC 1-0 to win the Trelawny Football Association National Rums of Jamaica Monymusk Plantation Rum Major League title in the final at the Elletson Wakeland Youth Centre in Falmouth on Sunday.

Player/coach Ricardo Reid scored the winning goal early in the 19th minute, but he wasted several other scoring opportunities in the second half to put the game away.Harmony FC, who were winning their first title since 2009 and fourth overall, are the first team to qualify for one of the four promotion places to next season’s Western Confederation Super League.Salt Marsh United were declared third-place finishers after Duanvale FC, the other losing semi-finalists, failed to show up for the consolation third-place game.Reid of Harmony FC told the

Jamaica Observer after the game that their game plan for the final worked.“The difference was that we came out with a game plan to press them from early. We know they run a lot and we just sat behind the ball and pressed them on the counter,” he said.Reid admitted his team could have killed the game off as a contest in the second half when he missed a handful of good scoring chances.Coopers Pen, who came from a two-goal deficit to beat Salt Marsh United 3-2 on aggregate in extra-time in the semi-finals, came into the game as slight favourites, but failed to replicate their form in the second half of the return-leg semi-final from the previous week.The absence of regular captain and central defender Valbert Campbell was crucial as Coopers Pen FC took a while to settle down and Harmony FC made the best of the early goings and got the decisive goal.Both teams had early chances to score as Desron Whyne came closest to giving Coopers Pen FC the lead after just eight minutes, but his low shot was just wide of the Harmony FC left upright. Two minutes later, the veteran Carlington Johnson just missed scoring for Harmony FC when his curling free-kick crashed off the cross bar and rebounded into play.Reid sent Harmony FC ahead in the 19th minute when he was first to react to his own shot that was blocked by Coopers Pen FC’s goalkeeper Olanzo Bird, and curled it into the far left corner.Reid, who enjoyed a good interplay with the industrious Ricardo James, had two good chances to add to their lead early in the second half, but he headed just high from close range in the 54th minute and then saw his shot saved by Bird two minutes later.Coopers Pen had one real chance of at least levelling the scores late in the game when Andre Palmer’s shot from the left flank, flew across the face of the Harmony FC goal with the goalkeeper Jermaine Maxwell stranded at the near right post.