SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — Manning’s School Head Coach Everton Tomlinson is upset that his team will have to play both daCosta Cup second-round games ‘away’ from Westmoreland, both starting at 1:00 pm, describing the decision by the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association as “unjustified”.

Manning’s School — last season’s beaten finalists, winners of their zone this season, and who are ranked number four overall after the first round — have had their return-round game against Charlemont High switched to the St Elizabeth Technical Sports Complex after playing the first round on Friday at Dinthill Technical in Linstead, St Catherine.

The Manning’s School vs Charlemont High game is one of six scheduled for today that will decide the first set of quarter-finalists, with another 10 games set for Wednesday.

Defending champions Garvey Maceo High will take a big 5-0 lead into their game against deCarteret College; Clarendon College lead St Mary Technical 7-1; Dinthill Technical are ahead of Brown’s Town High 4-1; while STETHS lead Holmwood Technical 1-0.

The Manning’s School game was originally set to be played at Llandilo, the home of the Westmoreland Football Association. And despite acknowledging that the venue was not suitable to host Saturday’s game between William Knibb Memorial and Petersfield, Tomlinson said efforts were made to rectify the problematic areas and that his game, along with the Frome Technical vs Titchfield High match set for Wednesday, could have been played there.

“As a football administrator I am well aware of the fact that it is the prerogative of the organisers to change venues, dates and times of any game,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Monday. “But this looks like victimisation. Based on our seeding it was my opinion that we would get home and away games.”

Ewan Scott, the coordinator of schoolboy football, said, however, based on the referees’ report from Saturday’s game at Llandilo, the field would not be considered for games today.

“The referees’ report indicated some issues during the game on Saturday, and while we were also told that efforts were being made to correct them, we had no way of verifying that the work was completed — and with schools needing to make arrangements, some to stay overnight, we had to make a timely decision,” he explained, adding that Llandilo would be considered for games in the future, granted all the issues had been corrected.

Tomlinson was critical of the arrangement for his first-round game that they managed to win 3-2.

“We got there in time for a 1:00 pm game and the game did not start until well later,” he informed, adding that the field was not prepared as loose grass hampered the underfoot conditions. “We had to play on a field that had cow dung all over it,” Tomlinson went on.

Video footage from the game showed a heard of cows being driven across the field, forcing a stoppage in play at one juncture.

Meanwhile, Manning’s School will have to dig deep if they are to advance to the next round against a Charlemont High team that is keen on an upset.

Charlemont High came from a goal down on Friday to lead 2-1 before giving up two goals to trail by one going into today’s return-leg game.

Garvey Maceo High and Clarendon College look set to advance with their big leads, as well as York Castle High who lead Seaforth High 4-0.

Dinthill Technical could be made to work hard as they will be without first-choice goalkeeper Asha Hutchinson who was sent off in the first game but lead 4-1.

STETHS hold a slight 1-0 lead over Holmwood Technical but will hope to benefit from playing at home today.

– Paul Reid

Tuesday’s games

Garvey Maceo vs deCarteret

College @ Garvey Maceo (5-0)

York Castle vs Seaforth @

Drax Hall 1:00 pm (4-0)

Brown’s Town vs Dinthill @

Drax Hall 3:00 pm (1-4)

Clarendon College vs St Mary

Tech @ Foga Road (7-1)

Manning’s vs Charlemont @

STETHS 1:00 pm (3-2)

STETHS vs Holmwood @

STETHS 3:00 pm (1-0)