St George’s 1 North Village 0

Jahron Dickinson scored a dramatic late winner as St George’s won the battle between the fourth and fifth-placed teams at Wellington Oval yesterday.

Village had some good periods in the match but could not capitalise and were made to pay when St George’s, after a good period themselves late in the game, finally produced the game’s only goal to snatch the points.

The Village defence was opened up with a ball down the middle, substitute Tre McCallan, who replaced Macai Simmons minutes earlier, found Dickinson with the telling pass before the forward slotted the ball past Detre Bell in the Village goal to secure the three points.

Dickinson was booked for taking off his shirt in celebration while Bell was also shown a yellow card for retaliation after appealing for offside on the goal.

It was the sixth win in ten matches for St George’s who had not played in three weeks, their last match being their 8-1 win over Southampton Rangers on January 9. It was also their first win against a team in the top four.

“I’m extremely happy, the biggest thing for us was shaking off the rust after not having a game for so long, with so many different cancellations and interruptions in our training regime,” said coach Jarreau Hayward.

“We could have put it away earlier, we had a couple of missed chances but we kept fighting and I’m proud of the heart that we showed. The three points, we deserved it.”

Dickinson had his team’s first chance of the match after six minutes when a through ball from Simmons put him through down the right side as he raced into the box before the advancing Bell made an important save.

Rai Simons, who scored twice as a substitute in Village’s win over Devonshire Colts last weekend, drove a free kick over the top from the left side of the box midway through the half.

Village did have the ball in the net late in the half when Terryn Fray’s perfect chip into the box found Pierre Smith at the far post to head past Freddie Hall only to have the effort ruled out for offside.

St George’s had a setback in the last couple of minutes of the first half when left back Jordan Darrell went off injured and was replaced by Jai Burgess.

Village created a couple of good chances through Justin Bell early in the second half down the left side as they kept looking for the opening goal.

St George’s had a good period midway through the second half as they went close on a couple of occasions. At the other end, defender Jalen Harvey, who was smashed in the face by the ball off the boot of Alleyne Francis just moments earlier, put a header wide from a Bell free kick.

St George’s forced a couple of corner in the closing minutes as they kept the Village defence under pressure. Many of their attacks in the second half were started by long kicks downfield by goalkeeper Hall aimed at the front players Dickinson, Simmons and Jarazinho Bassett. Eventually the pressure paid off.

“The heart of this team is unquestionable, we fought to the end and that’s why I think we deserved the three points,” Hayward stated.

St George’s now trail fourth place Village by two points but with three games in hand. On of those make-up matches will be on Thursday night against Devonshire Colts.

SCORER

St George’s: J Dickinson 90

TEAMS

St George’s (4-3-3): F Hall 6 ‒ A Francis 6, P Anderson 6, N Paynter 6, J Darrell 6 (sub: J Burgess 44, 6) ‒ T Burgess 6, J Carlington 6, D Signor 6 ‒ M Simmons 6 (sub: T McCallan 84), J Bassett 6, J Dickinson 6 (sub: J Brangman 90+2). Booked: Bassett, N Paynter, Dickinson, Brangman. Substitutes not used: C King, S Paynter, G Wade.

North Village (4-3-3): D Bell 6 ‒ K Knights 6, T Fray 6, Q Lema 6, J Harvey 6 ‒ V Perinchief, T Williams 6 (sub: W Botelho 75), D Daniels 7 ‒ R Simons 6, J Bell 7, P Smith 6. Booked: Bell. Substitutes not used: O DeShields, J Smith-DeShields, T Brown, K Carrington.

Referee: M Wyer