Harbour View win bruising encounter

Ryon Jones, Gleaner Writer

Defending champions Harbour View got back to winning ways on Sunday, with a literally hard fought 3-2 win over leaders Tivoli Gardens at the Harbour View Mini Stadium, in the 20th round of the Digicel Premier League.

The Stars of the East, got their goals from Christopher Harvey (eighth minute, penalty), Victor Thompson (33rd, own goal) and John-Ross Edwards (61st). Tivoli's goals came by way of Roland Dean (32nd) and Devon Hodges (78th).

As they had lost their previous two games, this was an important win for Harbour View who are lying sixth in the 12-team table on 30 points and remain confident of retaining the title, according to their coach, Donovan Hayles.

Have confident

"I still believe that this team can go all the way, I still have the confidence," Hayles stated. "Things weren't going our way but we were playing good football and you see tonight (Sunday) again, it is not that we just won but the way we won.

"My only headache is when we are in front of goal because tonight the score could have been higher. If this team can score two or three goals per game I think we can repeat," he added.

The game's outcome could have been much different as it was the visiting team that started out brighter.

They were, however, rocked by the eighth-minute goal, which was scored by Harvey from the penalty spot, this after Tivoli's captain, Kasai Hinds, was adjudged to have handled a Kemeel Wolfe shot.

The penalty was, however, strongly disputed by the Tivoli team but to no avail as referee Valdin Legister was unmoved.

This saw the physical play in the game intensify and resulted in 12 cards being issued; five yellows to each team and a red card a piece.

Tivoli's Kemar Flemmings was shown a straight red in the 42nd minute, while Harbour View's Wolfe committed his second bookable offence in the 81st minute and was ejected.

The awarding of the penalty and the general officiating of the game left Tivoli's assistant coach, Glendon 'Admiral' Bailey fuming.

"The man has on a white shirt and showed him where the ball hit and he called for a penalty," Bailey pointed out.

"When you have a league that is as competitive as this year's and you have the top teams playing in the country, the officials should let the game flow and keep it as reasonable as possible," he added.

Good football

Hayles also took issue with the number of interruptions during the game, but was pleased with how his team adjusted.

"I think we played some good football, although it was very difficult to play under the conditions," Hayles expressed.

"There were a lot of stoppages in terms of the flow of the football, but we still were able to maintain possession under the adverse conditions and came out victorious," he concluded.