UWI, August Town in crucial clash

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

The University of the West Indies' (UWI) striker, Anthony Grant, will be hoping to continue his rich goalscoring form when he leads his team into today's derby game against neighbours August Town, in the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA)/Claro Super League football match at the UWI Bowl, starting at 3:30 p.m.

Grant, who is the joint leading scorer in the competition along with Santos' Fabian Nethersole - with 12 goals - will lead his team's push as they seek to catch the leaders in the competition.

UWI are currently third in the standings on 27 points, five behind August Town (32). Defending champions Cavalier lead the standings with 34 points.

Coached by David Laylor, Cavalier will play away to fifth-place Rockfort (22) at Rockfort.

Marcel Gayle, the assistant coach of the UWI, is hoping to win to enhance their chances of topping the league.

"This is a very important match for us because August Town are five points ahead of us and so it will be good if we can win this game and get closer to them," said Gayle.

"We still believe that we can win this league, but in order for us to do that we will have to continue winning our games and hope for the best."

Gayle added: "They defeated us 1-0 in the first game and so we are hoping to turn he tables on them in this match, but we know that this is going to be a tough game for us."

Along with Grant, UWI will be relying heavily on the likes of midfielder Andre Bernal, who has netted six goals in this year's competition, and Donovan Hibbert.

August Town, who were demoted from top-flight football last season, will enter today's match full of confidence, as they have won their last five games - the most recent being a 5-0 thrashing of Rae Town.

"Every game is crucial from here on because we need to accumulate as much points as possible and hope that the leaders slip up," said Marlon Small, manager of August Town.

"This game is going to be a tough one because they still have a mathematical chance of winning the title," he added. "We should be able to beat them again because we have a lot of our senior players coming back into our team and they will play a major part on Saturday."

Striker Ricardo Monroe, who has netted five goals in his last two games, along with Aphas Bernard, who is back from Greenwich Town, and Nicholas Smith, from Arnett Gardens, will lead August Town's charge.

In the day's other games, bottom-place Duhaney Park (10) will entertain Mountain View United (13) at Baldwin Crescent, Bull Bay (14) will host Real Mona (11) at Bull Pen, Constant Spring (12) will oppose Barbican (14) at Constant Sports Complex, and Rae Town (19) battle Santos (24) at Breezy Castle. All games start at 3:30 p.m.