Devonshire Colts 4 Young Men’s Social Club 3

Senoj Mitchell scored twice, including a late winner, as Devonshire Colts remained in title contention heading into the Premier Division’s Christmas break by edging Young Men’s Social Club in a seven-goal thriller on Sunday.

Colts remain third, just a point behind leaders Dandy Town and trail second-place PHC only on goal difference and coach Ray Jones is delighted to be in the title hunt despite his anger at the performance of his team.

“We wanted to make sure that we stayed in touch with the leaders, so we got the result but from ten minutes on our play was disgusting”, Jones said.

“We scored early with a good combination right off the training pitch as we were pulling them all over the place just by sharing the ball, but then our forwards decided to become individualists.

“They scored an opportunist goal, which lifted their spirits and then next thing you know, we are in a dogfight and we never really settled down from there. I

It came down to the quality of both teams and I give my guys credit for playing until the end as we had to fight hard because Social Club never gave in.”

Colts started the match on all cylinders and opened the scoring with their first attack. Chemari Henry played the ball to Elisha Darrell and he slipped a first-time pass inside to Mitchell, who slotted past a flat-footed Clay Darrell, playing in an unfamiliar position as goalkeeper for Social Club.

Social Club had their first attack from the restart with the ball being played wide to Bermuda international Zeiko Lewis. His low cross found Ari Cannonier unmarked in the centre but his poor control allowed the Colts defence to track back and dispossess him.

Colts continued to press and Darrell conceded an unnecessary penalty when he brought down Mitchell as he was heading away from goal. Captain Jorj Dublin placed his spot-kick into the bottom right corner of the net to double the lead.

Social Club would reduce the deficit by one when captain Ryan Parris’s free kick took an awkward bounce and went through the hands of Colts goalkeeper Jahniko Francis to end up in the net.

They continued to press and would find the equaliser on the stroke of half time. Mical Hardtman was put through but was pulled down from behind by Shane Robinson to give referee Martin Wyer an easy decision to award a penalty. Parris sent Francis the wrong way to level the scores.

Social Club took this momentum into the second half as Hardtman hit a firm drive straight at goalkeeper Francis, who would parry the ball back into play. At the other end, Henry hit a firm drive that went inches wide with Darrell looking on.

A defensive blunder led to Colts going ahead again. Social club goalkeeper Darrell moved wide of his goal in anticipation of a back-pass but defender Amon Simons stumbled on the ball, which allowed Elisha Darrell to run around him and roll the ball into an empty net.

The lead was short-lived as the Angle Street team responded within minutes when Lewis broke through the defence before hitting a shot, which beat the outstretched arm of a diving Francis to again level the scores.

With the match heading for a draw, Colts mounted one last attack. Henry lifted the ball over Social Club’s defence to put Mitchell through and he kept his composure to place his angled shot beyond the onrushing Darrell to secure victory for his side.

SCORERS

Devonshire Colts: Mitchell 3, 87, J Dublin 17 pen E Darrell 78

Young Men’s Social Club: Parris 20,45, Z Lewis 80

Teams

Devonshire Colts (4-2-3-1): J Francis 5 ― S Robinson 6 (sub: J Bean Lindo, 68min 5), D Jackson 6 (sub: S Burgess, 68 5), J Dublin 7, J Paynter 6 ― J Samuels 6 (sub: A Van Duyne, 89), Z Burgess 6 ― K Burch 5 (sub: D Ball, 46 5), S Mitchell 8, C Henry 7 ― E Darrell 6. Substitutes not used: R Whitter, S Blair-Paynter. Booked: Jackson, Paynter, Burgess.

Young Men’s Social Club (4-2-3-1): C Darrell ― M Hardtman, R Parris, A Simons, J Smith --- J Johnston, G Butterfield (sub: A Matthews, 83) ― A Cannonier, J Hardtman, A Gardner (sub: B Swan, 83) ― Z Lewis. Substitutes not used: E Mensah, T Butterfield, K Butterfield. Booked: J Hardtman, J Smith.

Referee: M Wyer