Harbour View let slip a glorious opportunity to secure play-off football with one game left to go in the regular season when they went down 1-2 to a clearly jaded Waterhouse team in a rescheduled game at the Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex on Thursday night.

Having played games in the Caribbean Club Championships in the Dominican Republic and then returned to play weekend and midweek games to catch up, the Drewsland-based team has looked a little bit sluggish of late. But the ‘Stars of the East’ failed to capitalise on tired legs and even shot themselves in the foot when Oshane Staple put the ball past his own goalkeeper to gift Waterhouse the lead in the 13th minute.

Harbour View then spurned a number of opportunities to get back in the game and were then punished for a second time when Cardel Benbow squeezed the ball into the goal at the near post in the 45th minute to make it 2-0.

Colorado Murray threw his team a lifeline when he hit back a minute later, steering the ball home into the far corner from the edge of the box in the first minute of added time, but there were no further goals in the game as Waterhouse crowned themselves regular season champions for the second time since the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Harbour View Assistant Coach Sean Fraser was left deeply disappointed with his team’s performance.

“We are disappointed that we never got a point or three points to make sure that we were safe, but we live to fight another day.

“We got chances that we should have scored. Waterhouse is a very good team, but they were a little bit tired and we didn’t capitalise on their tiredness, hence the result,” he said.

Fraser thought his boys lacked focus in the second half and thus failed to get something from the game.

“I think we lost concentration for a little bit. We needed to chase the game, but we were just passing the ball around. I don’t think the players realised the importance of the game, but, as I said before, we live to fight another day and we will get back to the drawing board.

“Hopefully we can get the three points on Sunday and qualify for the top six.”

And, as for their final league game of the season against Dunbeholden — who have already secured a semi-final spot, Fraser has made it clear what needs to be done.

“It’s a do-or-die; it’s a final. There is no tomorrow. You go there, you play your heart out, leave everything in God hands.

“If it’s to be it’s to be. If not, then we try again next season, but definitely we have three points to play for and we are going to fight for it,” he stated emphatically.

Despite missing out on a point against Waterhouse, the odds are still stacked in the favour of Harbour View as they are two points better off than Tivoli Gardens and Humble Lion and also have a superior goal difference of +3 compared to the -2 that the chasing two now have.

Realistically, a point should be enough for Harbour View on Sunday, unless there is a dramatic result in either of the other two games of significance in the race for the sixth spot.