Waterhouse edge Boys Town at home to close gap on leaders

Photo: Damarley Samuels leaves name sake Asrick Samuels for dead during the game between Waterhouse and Boys Town on Sunday. D. Samuels got the winner for Waterhouse

It took a solitary strike in the 63rd minute from captain Damarley Samuels for Waterhouse to claim three valuable points in a close win over Boys Town, as action resumed in the Red Stripe Premier League on Sunday February 9th.

Photo: Damarley Samuels leaves name sake Asrick Samuels for dead during the game between Waterhouse and Boys Town on Sunday. D. Samuels got the winner for Waterhouse

It took a solitary strike in the 63rd minute from captain Damarley Samuels for Waterhouse to claim three valuable points in a close win over Boys Town, as action resumed in the Red Stripe Premier League on Sunday February 9th.

The competition had taken a one week break to facilitate the semifinals of the Jackie Bell Knock-Out Competition.

Playing with new recruit, the Haitian Chedlin Moncouer, who was wearing number 9 vacated by Jermaine ‘Tuffy’ Anderson up front, along with Gary McIntosh who hit a brace in their previous match, it was clear from the outset that the home team were after the three points.

A scrappy opening period gave way to a long period of dominance from Waterhouse, after the first 20 minutes had elapsed. During that time the Drewslanders created a number of goal scoring opportunities without being able to make any of them count.

The first chance fell to Moncouer in the 20th minute when he met a left sided cross at the back post but he was unable to make proper contact with his head and his effort crashed into the side netting. Shortly after Romario ‘RoRo’ Campbell fired a good shot on target, unfortunately for him it was straight at Kirk Porter in the Boys Town goal.

Moncouer brought the crowd to their feet when he tried an acrobatic effort which was headed for the top corner, only to be denied by an equally brilliant piece of goal keeping by Porter who was finding himself with a lot to do.

McIntosh should have given his team the lead in the 36th minute when a poor back header by a Boys Town defender put Porter under real pressure. The keeper was unable to make a proper clearance and the ball fell kindly to the striker who was unable to hit the target. The groans from the spectators along with lots of colourful language told exactly how they felt about the glaring miss.

Another chance went a begging when Campbell booted over the crossbar from just outside the area as the Boys Town defence came under siege.

Boys Town almost grabbed the lead on the stroke of half time and against the run of play when the captain, Michael Campbell curled a left footed area towards the top corner of Kelso Cousins goal. The otherwise idle keeper did brilliantly to tip over and keep the scores level after not being asked to do much for the entire first half.

The second half was more of the same with Waterhouse on the attack and Boys Town forced into a rear guard effort. 

The home team’s pressure and dominance finally told when the Boys Town defenders allowed a ball to bounce in front of them and the alert Samuels ran past everybody, including Moncoeur who was in an offside position but not interfering with play. He calmly lobbed the advancing Porter to score what would prove to be the decisive goal of the game.

Waterhouse continued to create the chances as Boys Town failed to do much in attack. They should have killed off the game in the 73rd minute when they had a 3-on-1 chance but McIntosh tried to go for goal from an acute angle when he had two teammates in the box that he could have passed to. In the end the win for Waterhouse was a fair result based on the balance of play.

Waterhouse coach Anthony Patrick, was happy to have secured the three points, “it was a hard fought victory,” he said. “We should have won by two or three clear goals based on the number of chances we created but most importantly, we didn’t give up any and we got all three points.”

“The work ethic of the team was impressive in the second half and we played well.”

Andrew Price tried to remain upbeat despite the narrow loss. “The league is still closely bunched. We just have to keep working hard. We were in the game for the 90 minutes. We just need to be more disciplined defensively, the goal we conceded was a poor one. We should have come away with at least a point,” he opined.