After finding themselves on the wrong side of a 4-2 scoreline in the first North Street derby, reigning Manning Cup champions Kingston College (KC) produced the perfect repost when they stunned St George’s College (STGC) and their supporters into near silence with a resounding 3-0 victory at Winchester Park last Saturday.

The victory meant that KC took Zone A honours while STGC finished as runners-up in what had been described as the zone of death at the start of the season.

Victorious coach Raymond Watson praised his boys for their tactical discipline which he thought resulted in them coming away with the win and the clean sheet.

“We stuck to the game plan and played excellent football and I must congratulate my team for believing in what we came here to do.

“The execution was brilliant and even in the times when we got some difficult moments from St George’s College, but I kept saying to them, believe, believe, believe, stick to the game plan and they did that.”

Watson was gracious in assessing how his opponents played against his team on the day.

“St George’s College, I thought they played us better today (Saturday) than they did in the first game and I must say thanks and congratulations to the St George’s College team for putting out a good performance, because if they didn’t play a quality game against us, I thought they would have been blown off the map, but even when they were down 3 goals they kept playing…they are a good unit.”

Watson is looking forward to the second round of the competition but has also identified areas of concern which will require attention on the training ground.

“I am feeling positive. We will be taking each game in stride. The better teams are in this round, so we will have to limit the mistakes that we make. We will have to be more positive in our approach play and I think we will also have to have a better conversion rate of our goal scoring chances,” he noted.

KC will next face Jose Marti in a two-leg play-off for a chance to advance to the quarterfinal round. The first leg will be played at the Royal Lakes Field in St Catherine on Wednesday starting at 3:00pm with the return leg set for Saturday at the Stadium East Field starting at 3:15pm.