Jamaica College (JC), Bridgeport head semi-finals showdown

Ryon Jones, Gleaner Writer

Two-time champions, Bridgeport High will look to advance to their second consecutive final in the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/Pepsi/ Digicel Manning Cup urban area senior schoolboy football competition when they tackle Jamaica College (JC) in the second of two semi-finals to be contested this afternoon at Ferdie Neita Park. Match time is set for 3 p.m.

The clash will be preceded by the match-up between Waterford and three-time champions, Norman Manley, in the first semi-final. The game is slated to kick off at 1 p.m.

Bridgeport and JC have met on one previous occasion this season, with the latter, having won 20 Manning Cup titles, coming away 2-0 winners.

The two teams are set to meet again on December 1 in the Walker Cup KO competition's final.

"It is something the boys are looking forward to, especially the boys that are leaving," JC's assistant coach, Delroy Brown, stated. "It is a good send-off for our senior players, which is about 50 per cent of the team. They need to come and win this semi-final to give themselves a shot at the Manning Cup title.

"If JC execute based on how they are supposed to, then I don't think we should have much problems beating this Bridgeport team again," he added.

Bridgeport's coach, Anthony Patrick, is also confident ahead of the mammoth encounter.

"The team is well prepared andwell focused at the moment," he said. "We are pretty confident and looking at the amount of opportunities we created in that game (the 2-0 loss), we see where we went wrong and hopefully we can correct it."

However, they will be without influential midfielder Houdain White, who suffered a broken leg in their latest outing, which was against Kingston College (KC).

"We are going to miss him; he played wonderfully for us in our last two games against KC and George's," Patrick lamented.

Norman Manley should enter the curtain-raiser supremely confident, being the only team to progress to the semi-finals with a perfect record. They also got the better of Waterford 2-0 in Walker Cup action.

"Everybody is upbeat in the camp and everybody is fit and ready to go and the confidence level is very high," Norman Manley's manager, Carl Stephens, stated.

"We will be looking for early goals, so we will be going with an attacking team from early. We will be looking a goal or two before half-time," he added.

"The current set of Waterford players are focused on giving the school its first senior schoolboy football title," Waterford's coach, Floyd Coke, disclosed. "That is all they think about right now ... and I don't think anything can happen tomorrow to deter them.

"They are very poised and ready, I don't think they can even sleep tonight," he added. "What we intend to do is break up their (Norman Manley) series of short passes, when we do that we should have the game covered."