Waterhouse labour to 1-0 win over Vere
Published:Tuesday | June 7, 2022 | 12:13 AM
Despite operating on short rest, Waterhouse’s march towards back-to-back regular season titles may soon reach its endgame.
The league leaders laboured to a 1-0 win over Vere United in their Jamaica Premier League game yesterday at the Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex.
Shaquiel Bradford scored in the 36th minute to complete the series sweep against the Clarendon-based club and moved them one step closer towards securing the regular season title for the second consecutive year.
Waterhouse are playing their third game in eight days after returning from the Caribbean Club Championship. However, they are unbeaten in that span and have picked up seven points to push them to 46 points, four ahead of second-place Dunbeholden.
For Waterhouse assistant coach Daniel Bent, while the laboured performance was a result of the short turnaround time to play their remaining schedule, he was more satisfied with the result than the performance.
“We have been playing a lot of games recently, especially coming from the Caribbean Club Championship. To come and play games on the trot, fatigue maybe setting in,” Bent said. “But all in all three points again, we are happy with it.”
While Waterhouse did get their goal, they never imposed their usual dominance as Vere United had chances of their own to steal a point, a thought not lost on Vere head coach Donovan Duckie.
“The quality was good. We had equal control over the game. They had a half chance and ended up winning the game. We had three chances to win the game and we didn’t take them,” Duckie said.
However, he said that he was more focused on the future than lamenting on the result or their difficult season. They remain in 10th place with 19 points with one game left to play. Having not repeated their play-off qualification exploits from last year, Duckie said that they have acquitted themselves well despite not having the full complement of their squad for the majority of the campaign.
“What I am concerned about is not the result tonight. I am concerned about the club building in the right direction. We have been playing 15 games with 45 per cent of players that you would want in a team,” Duckie said. “We have been very depleted.”