Having so far made good on their second wind in the shortened Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/Digicel football season, Phillip Williams is quietly optimistic that his young St Andrew Technical High School (STATHS) outfit can make further inroads.

Though they ended the group stage of the Manning Cup unbeaten, Williams and his team were initially left on the outside of quarter-final action in fourth position in Group B, but later had their campaign resuscitated after the top-two finishers, Camperdown High and Tivoli Gardens High, were both sent packing for fielding ineligible players.

Since then, the Bumper Hall-based team has been growing in confidence, hammering St Catherine 4-1 before going down 3-5 to champions and old foes Jamaica College (JC), followed by a crucial come-from-behind 2-1 win over a pesky Mona High.

That win against Mona saw them placing second behind JC in the quarter-final stage to not only book another date with rivals Kingston College in their fourth-straight Manning Cup semi-final, but also a date with one of the DaCosta Cup’s standout Dinthill Technical in the coveted Champions Cup.

Williams remembers fondly when his team got by Kingston College at the same stage in 2017 as that victory enabled STATHS to make their first appearance in the final since they won their only Manning Cup title in 1987.

Though they were unable to repeat the feat in 2018, Williams and his young team are highly motivated to once again upstage their North Street rivals.

“We have been here [at the semi-final] for the last four Manning Cup and that shows growth for the programme. So we, as coaches at STATHS, are very pleased about that, and it’s an all-around job from management straight down to the academic staff at STATHS,” Williams said in a recent interview.

“These youngsters are playing Manning Cup for the first time, but in terms of the past history for the past three seasons, they know what the other teams have achieved and they want to try to equal or even surpass those teams. It is just to get them to focus,” he added.

However, before that January 11 meeting against the purples, Williams’ side will have Dinthill Technical to contend with in Champions Cup action on Wednesday.

“STATHS being in the last four semi-finals again speaks volumes of not only our growth, but also what we are capable of in any given year,” the tactician noted.

“The youngsters have made their intentions of going all the way clear, and the coaching staff has put in the amount of preparation that will help them to achieve this,” he added.

Recollecting their performance against Mona, Williams pointed to his team’s hunger and fighting spirit when needed most, though admitting a lack of composure at times.

“It was tough but we won, which the coaching staff was very pleased with. I guess the situation or the circumstances got to the guys in terms of them losing their composure knowing that we were just one game away from the final.

“But it’s a very young team, their first time playing Manning Cup and I guess we can credit them with a bad game every now and then, but they are learning and maturing with each game,” he said.

“Hopefully we can get more composed and get ourselves in the right frame of mind to give a good account of ourselves for the rest of the season,” Williams ended.