Portmore United Head Coach Linval Dixon conceded his players had the stuffing knocked from them after Arnett Gardens FC fired in two second-half goals within a 10-minute span in the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) final.

Arnett came from behind to win 2-1 at the National Stadium on Monday to secure their fifth national league title with goals coming from Ranike Anderson and Marvin Morgan.There was also individual satisfaction for Arnett Gardens Head Coach Jerome Waite. Like he did when Arnett previously hoisted the RSPL crown in 2014-15, he won the coach of the year accolade. It is also Waite’s fourth league title as coach.Portmore, who got the early opener from Maalique Foster, dominated most of the first half, though Arnett’s attacker Fabian Reid had a penalty kick saved by goalkeeper Shaven-Sean Paul. By midway the second half, Portmore fell flat as Arnett accelerated the tempo.It was Portmore’s second-straight defeat in the final after last season’s disappointment against Montego Bay United.“It can be we ran out of gas because, naturally, when you play so many games it’s going to tell on the team,” Dixon told the

Jamaica Observer after the loss on Monday.“But again, I’d never want to find excuses; as professionals it is our duty to come out and work hard. There was just not enough gas in our tank,” the former Reggae Boyz defender said.Portmore finished fourth during the RSPL’s preliminary stage and progressed to the final via two rounds of two-legged play-off matches.He noted that the overseas campaign in the Caribbean Football Union Club Championship and the subsequent second-leg semi-final encounter against The University of the West Indies (UWI) FC back in Jamaica took their toll on the players.“I can’t fault the team because they did well over the course of this season. They came back from Trinidad where they had the club championship and they played UWI in the second leg so, of course, fatigue will creep in. You could see the effort and desire; the team tried really hard, but Arnett did well to get the win,” Dixon said.After a bad patch earlier in the season, Waite saw Arnett rally with a strong run in the third and final round of the preliminary stage to finish sixth in the league.He said there was renewed vigour after management soothed a salary dispute — as the club suffered a financial crisis — that led to a noticeable dip in results and threatened to derail their season’s goals mid-stream.“The internal issues started as early as the final two games of the first round. The team bounced back and some players were allowed to move on based on the financial strain that we had.“That was the turning point and though we weren’t the best over all three rounds, we stayed in contention in a situation where top six would get us to the play-offs. Pride was at stake and we had to show character, and it’s about achieving something outside of the financial part,” Waite said.After holding onto that final play-off spot, they also reached the final via two rounds of two-legged play-off matches. However, they were not a part of the CFU club competition this season.But Waite said he knew the writing was on the wall for a comeback against Portmore because of the chances his team had created in the first period.“The game wasn’t easy; you have to give Portmore credit because they really came here with a lot of purpose and they scored within two minutes. One of the high points I took was the number of chances we created — which was four, including the penalty.“At the half-time break I let them understand that, despite Portmore leading, we were still in the game because we created those chances. We just needed to continue creating chances. And we tracked the runners in midfield and we looked better in the second half,” he told the

Observer.