Former Red Stripe Premier League outfits Rivoli United and Cavalier SC commenced their hunt to get back into the nation’s top-flight league with a 1-1 stalemate in the Magnum/Charley’s JB JFF Confederation Play-offs at the Spanish Town Prison Oval yesterday.

Dan Reid (15th) sent Rivoli United in front, but Swayne Thomas (23rd) notched the equaliser to ensure Cavalier a share of the spoils in a fairly dull encounter, which saw the hosts ending with 10 men.

Jeremy Nelson was shown a straight red card by referee Kevin Morrison in the 49th minute for an off-the-ball incident which involved former St George’s College striker Alex Marshall.

Meanwhile, the other contest between Eastern Confederation champions Priory Soccer Academy from St Ann and the Western Confederation champions Sandals South Coast from Westmoreland ended goalless at Drax Hall.

This means that the battle for the two promotional spots remains evenly poised heading into Wednesday’s second round of games.

At Prison Oval, Cavalier, the KSAFA champions were the more enterprising of the two teams in the early exchanges as they dominated possession, created a few chances, but failed to capitalise.

This resulted in Rivoli United, the South Central winners, breaking the deadlock against the run of play. Nelson expertly dummied a pass which allowed Reid to fire past custodian Jeadine Whyte from the top of the 18-yard box.

However, the celebrations were short-lived as they failed to press on the ascendancy and Cavalier came roaring back eight minutes later through Thomas, who was on hand to head in a well-weighted right-side cross from Oshane Jenkins.

The youthful Cavalier team continued to dictate the terms of the contest, but were unable to breach their opponents’ defence. At the other end, Whyte in goal for Cavalier ensured that the scores remained unchanged at the break when he came up big to tip over a Dellon Dixon’s right-footed effort from a distance.

Like they did at the start, Cavalier came out more purposeful on the resumption, and their confidence would have been given a boost following the ejection of Nelson four minutes in.

Unfortunately, their probe for the elusive winner proved futile due to poor decision-making in the final third and some tight defensive work by Rivoli United, who stood firm despite the numerical disadvantage.

Cavalier’s Head Coach Rudolph Speid, though slightly displeased that his team failed to secure all three points, believed a point on the road is a good platform on which to build.

“We were playing without five of our regular players, but once they went down to 10 men I think we should have really gotten the three points, but a point on the road is still a decent result. We didn’t play well in the first half because of a little bit of nerves; we did better in the second half, but we didn’t confirm the dominance in their third.

“But all in all, I think it is definitely a good platform to build on because we always thought that this was going to be one of our hardest games, especially the first game. So we go forward from here,” he told the Jamaica Observer in a post-game interview.

His counterpart, Anthony Thompson, was also pleased with a point.

“I can’t say this was a good performance from my team; this was our worst for a while and I never expected us to play like this. We got a good goal and then we gave up a messy one and that set us back and everything went wrong for there.

“But it is good that we got a point because when we went down to 10, we knew we had to take a point, although I wanted to win because this is my home turf. But we look ahead to the next game to go out and get some points,” he noted.