Surprise package KT take aim at STGC in Group A Manning Cup action
Surprise package Kingston Technical High School (KTHS) built on their 1-0 shock defeat of champions Jamaica College (JC) with a 5-0 mauling of Kingston High on Saturday and will take aim at St George’s College (STGC) on Tuesday as they look to continue their giant killing act in the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup competition.
The two teams will meet in the first game at the Stadium East field starting at noon and head coach Shaun Charlton has promised to keep his team grounded as the pursue the impossible in the “group of death”.
“We know that the attention has been on us from the start, but we are not going to get swell headed or get ahead of ourselves. We are going to remain humble, work hard and set our objectives game by game to see where we can finish at the end of the season,” he said after the victory on Saturday.
Their second win of the campaign took them top of Group A on goal difference which also includes the likes of other former champions Charlie Smith and Bridgeport High.
Charlton revealed that KTHS were keen on building on the success against JC when they faced Kingston High last Saturday.
“This game against Kingston High was to stamp our authority and gain more points coming off our success against JC. We were determined that we were going to use this game as a marker to see how far we can go in the group.”
KTHS missed the opportunity to score an even bigger win against Kingston High after scuffing a few easy chances and Charlton, while happy for the goal return of five, will be demanding more from his players going forward.
“They say in everything give thanks, even for the smallest things. We got five against Kingston High and we are thankful, but we know our standard. Going forward we would want to have more goals.”
He is looking to negate the impact of goal difference on his team’s chances of advancing to the quarterfinals by getting the job done with wins.
“We know that goal average can be a factor but if we win everything, we don’t have to think about the goal average, but our estimation is that, get more goals and add up the tally.”
STGC have won both their games so far and also have six points, but they have struggled to score goals, edging Kingston High 2-1 in their season opener before squeezing by Bridgeport High 1-0 on Saturday.
Their head coach Neville ‘Bertis’ Bell will be hoping that his strikers show up with the shooting boots on today. A win for either team would give them sole leadership of the group and put them in pole position to advance to the final eight.
The feature game at the venue today will see Calabar High who are on four points from two games take on the winless Kingston High while the other game in the group will see Bridgeport High and Charlie Smith High face off at the Spanish Town Prison Oval at 3:00pm.