Boyd shoulders responsibility to earn Tivoli point

A late penalty by Tivoli Gardens' Navion Boyd earned his team a 1-1 draw with National Premier League leaders Waterhouse at the Edward Seaga Sports Complex yesterday.

The result saw Waterhouse dropping their first points of the season, in this the fourth round.

Boyd's goal came in the 89th minute to cancel out Gary McIntosh's 83rd-minute strike. The result left Waterhouse on 10 points, while defending champions Tivoli fell to third with eight points.

National striker Boyd was overlooked for the crucial spot kick, as the coaching staff had signalled for substitute Christopher Jackson to shoulder the responsibility.

Boyd would not relinquish the duty, however, as he stepped up to the spot and hammered home his second goal of the season.

"I think it is a very important goal for me and the team, seeing that we went behind so late in the game. But we stuck to the task and tried to get a point," Boyd explained.

"From the bench the coaches were sending another player to kick it, so I had to show seniority seeing that I am one of the leading players on the field," he added.

Tivoli's head coach, Glendon 'Admiral' Bailey, rationalised why Jackson was chosen to take the decisive kick.

"Based on who takes the free kicks and penalties in training that's why we opted for Jackson," Bailey said.

"We know the he (Boyd) is capable of doing it, but because Boyd and McCallum are both national players I thought the keeper might have had a better idea of where he wanted to put it," he added.

The highly physical game saw Tivoli dominate the first half, as they carved out several goalscoring opportunities, but failed to capitalise.

The best of these came in the 14th minute when Boyd rounded McCallum, but was thwarted by a last ditch tackle from Noel Edwards. That was, however, Edwards' last contribution in the match as he injured his hamstring and had to be replaced by Theo Brown.

The visitors had been close themselves in the 11th minute, when a beautiful attacking move engineered by Vincent Earle saw Peter Keyes played through on goal. He got off a powerful effort, but Tivoli's custodian, Edsel Scott, pulled off a tremendous save.

McIntosh broke the deadlock nine minutes after coming on when he was in the right place at the right time to turn in a square from Jermaine Anderson, who had done some wonderful work on the right by-line.

But Hugh Howell's handling of the ball in the area allowed Boyd to pull Tivoli level.

Waterhouse's coach, Donovan Duckie, was grateful for the point, but had a number of grouses.

"I am very disappointed with a number of things, but I won't say them now," Duckie said. "I am happy for the point, but we should have got three points,"