Manchester off to winning start

Adrian Frater, News Editor

Western Bureau:

Last year's beaten finalists, Manchester High School, started their campaign in the 2010 Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/Pepsi/Digicel daCosta Cup senior schoolboy football competition in emphatic style yesterday afternoon, spanking a hapless Christiana High School 5-0 in their first-round Zone G fixture at Manchester.

In a game where they held a comfortable 4-0 half-time lead, the Barry Watson-coached boys, who have quickly established themselves as favourites to win the group, scored through Junior Neil (two goals), Dave Murphy (two) and Oral Johnson.

"We had an excellent first half but we slowed down somewhat in the second half," said Watson. "I thought we played well overall, but we will be looking to improve as we go along."

In the second of the Zone G games Knox College, whose bid to advance from the zone last year was thwarted by Edwin Allen and Spalding High, got off to an encouraging start, scoring a big 7-1 win against Alston High, with Jamie Williams and Delon White each scoring a hat-trick. Joel Palmer scored the other goal.

The third of the scheduled Zone G game was not played as Cross Keys failed to show for their fixture against Porus High at the Porus Community Centre.

In one of yesterday's much-anticipated games, Lennon High served early notice that they will be a hot contender for one of the two inter-zone places from Zone H when they outscored Claude McKay 3-1. Odane Brown, Romario Perkins and Justin Johnson were the players on target for the Merron Gordon-coached Lennon aggregation which emerged one of the inter-zone qualifiers from what was a competitive Zone H last year.

Playing at home in the second of the two Zone H games, Edwin Allen, behind goals from Oneik Clarke and Romane Williamson, scored a 2-0 win over Thompson Town on their home ground.

In the lone Zone J game that was played, Ewarton High, behind goals from Ricardo Mason and Lemard Neil, scored a 2-1 win over Bog Walk. The Old Harbour High-Charlemont game was not played because of a water-logged field.

Meanwhile, an ISSA release yesterday stated that three schools have withdrawn from the competition. They are Bustamante High (Zone I), Glengoffe High (Zone J) and Seaforth High (Zone L).

The competition continues tomorrow.

Yesterday's results

Zone G: Manchester 5 Christiana 0, Knox College 7 Alston High 1, Porus vs Cross Keys - (Cross Keys failed to show for the game); Zone H:- Lennon 2 Claude McKay 1, Edwin Allen 2 Thompson Town 0; Zone J: Old Harbour vs Charlemont (no play, water-logged field), Ewarton 2 Bog Walk 1.