Photo: Alex Marshall scores the second goal for St. Georges College in their 3-1 come from behind win over Haile Selassie on Wednesday at the Prison Oval.
St. Georges College made light work of Haile Selassie when they beat them 3-1 in a come from behind win at the Spanish Town Prison Oval on Wednesday as action began in Group J in the second round of the Manning Cup.
Haile Selassie actually took the lead early, when a stunning, left footed shot by Akeem Morrison swerved away from Cyle Elliott in the STGC goal, kissing the inside of the right upright before nestling into the back of the net, with only nine minutes on the clock.
But St. Georges always scores goals and Haile Selassie found out the hard way. The Light Blues went on the offensive after conceding and drew level in the 22nd minute when Jevoun McKellar side-footed home from a neat right sided build up.
It didn’t take long for the Neville Bell coached team to take the lead when Alex Marshall scored the easiest of goals from near the goal line after another right sided buildup. The Haile Selassie defenders stood still anticipating an offside call but the STGC players kept playing and Marshall was able to recover from a slip before tapping home.
The second half proved to be about containment for the team from North Street as they managed the game well.
Haile Selassie who was guilty of giving the ball away needlessly in midfield on a number of occasions, was limited to long range efforts on target for most of the second half.
Gregory Messam Jr. has been the man from the spot for STGC all season and he duly obliged yet again, midway the second half, after Marshall was brought down in the box after going on one of his trademark mazy runs.
With a comfortable two goal lead and their opponents clearly without weapons to trouble them, STGC went into cruise mode as they saw out the game to bag three vital points to begin the round.
“Today we just focused on getting three points,” said STGC assistant coach Marcel Gayle. “Credit to the guys, I thought they played well, recovering from Saturday’s game. They gave a good account of themselves.”
Michael Williams, head coach of Haile Selassie admitted that his team gave up possession too easily during the game.
“We have to go back to training and play more possession football. Today we never possessed the ball as we would like to. We weren’t patient and we kept giving away the ball. Once you give away the ball your opponents will come back at you. We just have to learn from the mistakes and go forward.”
St. Jago defeated KC 2-1 in the second match of the day to set up an intriguing matchup between themselves and St. Georges next week.
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