Tivoli still lead

André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

Tivoli Gardens maintained their three-point lead atop the table in the Digicel Premier League, after an unconvincing 1-0 win over 10-man Waterhouse, in their assignment at the Edward Seaga Sports Complex yesterday.

Aware that second-place Boys' Town (65 points) had temporarily joined them at the summit, following their 2-1 victory away to Portmore United in their early kick-off, Tivoli Gardens were far from their best, but managed to keep the Red Brigade at arm's length, courtesy of a 54th-minute strike from Navion Boyd that extended their tally to 68 points.

Both teams got off to a nervous start, with the hosts playing with particular uncertainty during the opening exchanges; perhaps a bit preoccupied with the happenings in Portmore.

Coach Glendon 'Admiral' Bailey credits his half-time 'roughing-up' of the players for the result.

do the work

"We started flatly, there was no energy, but I had to give it to them at half-time and remind them that being a champion or becoming one isn't something that is handed to you, you have to work for it," Bailey said.

Despite their shaky start, Tivoli Gardens had their fair share of opportunities and could have established a comfortable lead before half-time, had it not been for some shameful finishing from striker Roland Dean.

The striker got his first chance after 20 minutes when, after doing all the hard work to turn his marker at the top of the box, he inexplicably tried to thread a pass to a well-marked Keammar Daley, with the Waterhouse goal waiting invitingly to be breached.

Dean was at it again in the 34th minute when he hit his shot straight at the advancing Richard McCallum in goal, after he was expertly played through by Daley. In truth, it was a mixture of poor finishing and decisive goalkeeping, as the national custodian did well to make things difficult for the misfiring Dean.

Boyd, who up to this point was having an uncharacteristically quiet outing, came inches close to opening the scoring when his diving header at the back-end of some good work by Christopher Jackson went down the left channel.

wasted chances

Dean would waste two other clear opportunities, before Boyd finally settled the nervous home supporters with a pretty basic finish.

The striker made the most of some rather casual defending to latch on to a ball well inside the penalty area, after the Waterhouse defence failed to deal with a throw deep in their territory.

Waterhouse, who had Jason Watson ejected in the 75th minute for a harsh challenge, produced little going forward and could have been sent into a deeper hole had it not been for the exploits of McCallum, who was at his best to parry a Shaun McKoy strike towards the end of the game, after a sweeping Tivoli Gardens counter-attack.

Waterhouse's coach, Marcel Gayle, believes his team was not hungry enough.

"Tivoli were just hungrier than us, the guys stuck with the game, we made one silly mistake at the back and paid for it. We wanted to win it, we knew what we were up against and they just came out hungrier than us today," said Gayle.