Dandy Town 1 Devonshire Colts 4

Devonshire Colts’ Premier Division title hopes received a massive boost with an emphatic win over league leaders Dandy Town at White Hill Field on Sunday.

The away side capitalised on some slack defending with Jahzardae Samuels leading the charge with two goals and Senoj Mitchell and Elisha Darrell scoring one each. David Jones Jr grabbed a consolation for Town, who suffered their third loss of the season.

The result lifted Devonshire Colts to second in the table, tied with new leaders PHC on 24 points, while Hornets dropped to third and are two points adrift.

Colts coach Ray Jones was delighted to come away with the points but was quick to stress that the title race is far from over.

“Overall, I am happy but it’s not the title decider,” he told The Royal Gazette. “It’s just one game and we just need to be humble and keep putting the work in.

“We can’t get too excited. We are just dealing one game at a time because one game can flip things on its head, so you can’t get ahead of yourself.”

Two Colts goals came from set pieces, which Jones was also pleased about.

“We have been doing a lot of work on set pieces and today it finally paid off,” he said.

“What I find with the size of our squad is that our set pieces can be very helpful, so we spend quite a bit of time in training on the set pieces and they finally got executed today, so kudos to the boys.”

Jones also felt the big pitch played to his team’s advantage.

“To be honest I think this pitch had a lot to do with it,” he said “It’s one of the more even pitches, which allows us to keep the ball on the carpet and that is how we really like to play. It’s a lovely pitch to play on and kudos to whoever is keeping this up because it allowed us to play some football today.”

After a cagey start the game exploded into life with Colts scoring twice inside four minutes to rock their hosts.

Mitchell broke the deadlock when he took possession of Jomei Bean-Lindo’s defence-splitting pass, rounded Town goalkeeper Jaiden Manders and slotted into the empty net for his twelfth goal of the season and the first Town had conceded in more than 380 minutes of football.

Mitchell then went from scorer to provider as Samuels scored with a brilliant diving header in the area after getting on the end of the former’s inviting cross to open his account for the season.

Town went close to pulling one back with their first attempt on goal when Danté Leverock’s header from Lejuan Simmons’s free kick was cleared off the line by San Tze Burgess.

The home side’s persistence finally paid off when David Jones Jr headed home Simmons’s cross at the back post on the stroke of half time to drag his team back into the match.

However, Colts were not done and they struck twice after the restart to put the game beyond reach.

Samuels grabbed his second of the match when he got the final touch to Jorj Dublin’s headed flick-on at the near post from Bean-Lindo’s long throw-in.

The striker squandered a glorious opportunity to complete his hat-trick after breaking free as he hesitated to shoot which allowed the Town defence to recover and clear the ball to safety.

Darrell put the icing on the cake when he buried a poor clearance from Bean-Lindo’s corner as Hornets’ defensive woes continued.

The victory did not come without a cost as defender Daniel Ball was replaced near the end after taking a knock to the shin.

Town coach Jarreau Hayward made no excuses for his team’s demise.

“We were just not at it from the first whistle,” he said. “Colts wanted it more than us and that’s what it came down to.

“It’s definitely disappointing. We have been hungry all season and in a crucial match like this we were not hungry so we will go back to the drawing board.

“We’re not going to panic and we will be all right as there’s lots of football still to be played.”

SCORERS

Dandy Town: Jones 45

Devonshire Colts: Mitchell 20, Samuels 24, 50, Darrell 64

TEAMS

Dandy Town (4-1-4-1): J Manders 5 — T Webb Jr 6, E Moore 6, D Leverock 6, L Simmons 7 (sub: E Blankendal, 82min)- Q Maynard 6 (sub: D Daniels, 57 6) — L Outerbridge 6, E Swan 6 (sub: A Trott, 68 6), J Furbert 6 (sub: A Lewis, 82), T Goater 6 (sub: K Davis, 57 5) — D Jones Jr 7. Booked: Leverock, Davis. Substitutes not used: J Hill, A Bailey

Devonshire Colts (4-1-4-1) J Mills 7 — M Isaac 7, S Tze Burgess 7, J Dublin 7, D Ball 7 (sub: J Paynter, 73 6) — Z Burgess 8 — J Bean-Lindo 8 (sub: K Burch, 76), C Henry 7, S Mitchell 8, E Darrell 7 (sub: S Robinson, 84) — J Samuels 8. Booked: Mitchell, Bean-Lindo, R Jones (coach). Substitutes not used: A Van Duyne, S Tatem, J Jackson

Referee: M Venne (Canada)