KINGSTON College (KC) Head Coach Vassell Reynolds was left disappointed with his team’s performance after the former champions encountered a minor scare in their opening match of the ISSA/Manning Cup competition and were forced to come from behind to secure a 2-2 draw against minnows Penwood at the Marverly field on Monday.

KC trailed 2-1 for the entire second half but were rescued by striker Demario Dailey who netted the equaliser in the 90th minute of the game. It was Dailey’s second goal of the match, after scoring in the 33rd minute. Javanny Bullock, in the first minute, and Jason Keyes in the 37th minute were the scorers for Penwood.

Reynolds expressed disappointment with his team’s poor execution, noting that they missed too many easy chances in front of goal.

“I think we played in bits and pieces because that 15-second goal kind of shocked us a little bit, and it took some time to settle down. I thought we panicked,” he said. “In the second half we gave it everything but it just didn’t happen for us — especially in the final third where we missed a number of chances. If we had converted some of those chances it would have been a better performance.”

“I am disappointed with the result, based on the number of chances we had. This is an early wake-up call for us; we got one point when we expected three. It’s a setback, because we lost two points, but we should be fine and we’ll put this behind us as quickly as possible,” Reynolds added.

Penwood Coach Robert Garwood pointed to a defensive mistake by one of his defenders as the reason his team missed out on all three points.

“The performance was good, I liked it,” Garwood said. “But defensively, I have some work to do and I will go back to the drawing board to make those adjustments.

“The attacking power of my team is strong, because we played some preseason games and I saw that we were good. But the problem is that our main defender had to sit out this game, which forced us to change up our defensive line. We had to bring in some players who don’t usually play defence to fill in,” Garwood stated.

Penwood, which has never reached the semi-finals of the Manning Cup competition, got off to a dream start when Bullock netted the opening goal just 15 seconds into the match. Bullock, one of Penwood’s best attacking players, collected a long pass from midfield inside the 18-yard box before turning away from his marker and firing past KC’s goalkeeper.

Dailey, who had an excellent game for KC, scored the equaliser when he nodded home from close range. However, Penwood, who were much stronger than their opponents in the first half, restored their narrow advantage when Keyes fired home from point-blank range.

KC dominated the second half as they created several clear-cut chances, but faulty shooting and excellent defending from Penwood’s defensive unit kept them at bay.

However, Penwood’s resilience was finally broken in the 90th minute when their goalkeeper failed to control a back pass from one of his defenders. Dailey chased the ball inside the 18-yard box, took it away from the goalkeeper, and calmly slotted it into an empty net.

Yesterday’s results

Gaynstead 0, Jonathan Grant 9

St Jago 1, Wolmer’s 3

Cumberland 0, Campion College 4

Tarrant 0, Charlie 4