Patrick wants more after St Catherine win
Despite extending their unbeaten run to three games with another clean sheet, St Catherine High School Head Coach Anthony Patrick is still hoping his team will find its offensive spark which will determine how deep they go into this ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup season.
This as he expressed slight discontent with the manner of his team’s 1-0 win over St Jago High in the Group B St Catherine derby at Spanish Town Prison Oval yesterday.
It took a solitary strike from central defender Romaine Walters in the 37th minute to separate the teams as St Catherine High assumed pole position on seven points, one ahead of St Jago, who were being condemned to their first defeat.
“The defensive unit played well and that played a part in the victory because, as you can see, the centre back got the goal for us today [yesterday],” Patrick said in a post-game interview.
Having opened their account with a 3-0 win over Holy Trinity, followed by a goalless stalemate with last season’s beaten finalists Jamaica College, St Catherine were expected to prove a tough nut to crack, despite St Jago tallying seven goals in their two wins.
After evenly matching strides in the early exchanges, St Catherine later asserted some authority, which resulted in the all-important strike from Walters.
The score would remain unchanged at the break and, by extension, for the remainder of the contest, though St Catherine could have added a few more had it not been for their profligacy.
Though pleased with the win, Patrick rued his team’s lack of conviction in the attacking third, which he says has been lacking due to the injury of a few senior players.
“Pleased, but still not quite pleased with the offensive thrust, the spark wasn’t there today and that will be important because the goal is to get to the next round and then try and take it from there,” the tactician told the Jamaica Observer.
“So it [the win] is definitely a great motivation and we just have to move on from here and try to get the few senior players that are injured at the moment, try to get them back up as quickly as possible,” he added.
Meanwhile, his counterpart Garnett Lawrence backed his charges to bounce back from the defeat.
“We have some injuries which has caused us to keep reshuffling the team. There is not much we could have done because of inexperience as you saw only the captain alone stood out, but I am confident that these guys will bounce back,” Lawrence told reporters.
Yesterday’s results
Group B
St Catherine 1, St Jago 0
Group C
Tivoli 1, Haile Selassie 3
Charlie Smith 3, Edith Dalton 1
Vauxhall 2, Bridgeport 2
Group E
Hydel 7, Kingston High 1
Mona High 9, Camperdown 2
Group F
Clan Carthy 1, Excelsior 2
Cumberland High 1, Campion College 2
Jose Marti 1, Kingston Technical 0
Today’s games
Group A
Calabar v Ardenne – @ Red Hills Road
Kingston College v Meadowbrook – @ Stadium East
Waterford v St George’s College – @ Waterford
Group B
St Mary’s College v Cedar Grove Academy – @ St Mary’s College
Holy Trinity v Jamaica College – @ Winchester Park
Group D
Spanish Town High v Norman Manley – @ Spanish Town Prison Oval
STATHS v Jonathan Grant – @ Bumper Hall
*All games kick off at 3:30 pm