Barbican storm into SWWL final

Nodley Wright, Gleaner Writer

Defending Sherwin Williams Women's League champions, Barbican FC, will have to wait until next week to know their opponents in the final after the second game of the double-header between Lost Perfectos and Waterhouse was blown off because of a waterlogged field. Both teams drew 2-2 in the first leg.

Barbican followed up their midweek first-leg 3-0 win with a 5-1 thumping of Portmore Strikers (to advance 8-1 on aggregate) at the Spanish Town Prison Oval on Saturday. Nadola Chase, Trudian Mills, Janine Dennis, Petrona Ricketts and Jodian McGregor were the scores for Barbican, while Kellian Fearon had fired Portmore ahead in the second minute.

Winning coach Charles Edwards attributed his team's success to better preparation.

"We are a better prepared team. Portmore no doubt have a lot of talent and are one of the most feared teams in the play-offs right now," said Edwards, who also suggested that his charges were fitter.

"Our job was to shut them down and not allow them to get into their stride because we knew that physically, they could not match us and we did just that," continued Edwards.

Portmore Strikers started out looking better in a first half, which saw a wonderful exhibition of football in which both teams moved the ball around beautifully and played with intelligence. They did not try to dribble too much and weighed and measured their passes almost perfectly to suit the wet underfoot conditions.

Portmore Strikers duly took the lead in the second minute through Fearon.

Following that, Iesha Mowatt, Rochelle Bryan, Joadian Morris, Tashana Vincent and Jodian Morris led Portmore's charge, but poor finishing kept Barbican in the game.

Barbican gradually clawed their way back into the game as Chase, in particular, had a superb game. She drew them level in the 20th minute after collecting a wonderful pass from McGregor, which found her with acres of space, as the defence failed to close her down. Capitalising on their hesitancy, she pushed forward into the 18-yard box and slotted home clinically with the left foot.

While Portmore continued to show good qualities, they found themselves being pulled apart by the movement of Chase, who combined well with the speedy Dennis up front. McGregor was also growing in influence and when Mills scored the second in the 36th minute and Dennis put Barbican 3-1 ahead in the 43rd minute, the deficit became too large for Portmore and they gave up the fight.

Second half

The second half lacked the quality of the first as the different periods of showers made the field - which by then had a number of puddles - difficult for play.

Ricketts' 50th-minute strike made it 4-1 for Barbican and McGregor put on the finishing touch in the 59th minute.

"I think the first leg that we played in which we went down 3-0 threw us off a lot, so we came here going all out ... We went ahead but after fighting and fighting; but Barbican were resilient," a disappointed Vincent said at the end of the game. "We just went forward seeing what we could salvage from it but hats off to Barbican, they are a good team and played well."

She added: "Our young players did not step up and play the role that the coach wanted them to play. Most of the players are not woman enough to take constructive criticism and that was the downfall of our team. I think we are the best team in this competition and every time we get to this stage of the competition, we always get complacent and give it away and that is exactly what we did today."