Devonshire Colts were embarrassed yesterday at the Southampton Oval when they were convincingly beaten by Hotels International who netted a goal in each half to shut out the visitors.

The loss put a serious dent in any league title hopes that the Colts may have been harbouring and dropped them to fifth in the standings with only two matches left to play.

In the close confines of the Oval, neither team managed to reach any level of entertaining soccer, and the meagre crowd, comprised of mainly Colts fans, were treated to 90 minutes of scrappy play.

The Colts began with some promise and almost right from the opening whistle they finished the play with Anthony Wilson lifting his looping volley high of the target. Less than five minutes later Mark Ray came close for Colts when he drilled a close-range shot that was blocked near the goal-line by goalkeeper Randy Darrell.

Hotels had their early chances too, but the difference was that they made one of them count! Early in the half, lanky Randy Boyles shrugged off two tackles but drove his volley just over the crossbar from an acute angle. He had a hand though in Hotels' first goal in the 22nd minute when he rose beautifully to head down a Chris Sabir free kick. The ball fell to Don Lewis on the six-yard line and the striker managed to poke it home past stranded goalkeeper Antoine Lightbourne.

Clifton Anderson, the scorer of the second goal later in the match, almost increased the lead right from the restart when he flighted a fine shot from all of 40 yards that looked destined for the back of the net but Lightbourne did well to tip it over the bar.

Colts' coach Lorenzo Symonds brought Keishon Smith into the match early in the second half for the ineffective Yul Wade but this too did little to improve their fortunes.

Anderson closed out the scoring midway through the half when he collected another fine ball from Boyles and drilled it low past the sprawling 'keeper.

Hotels: R.Darrell, E.Simmons, D.Bell, P.Smith, C.Sabir, D.Lewis (R.Lopes, 82 mins), M.Piper, F.Cappara, C.Robinson, R.Boyles, C.Anderson.

Devonshire Colts: A.Lightbourne, C.Wright, K.Burchall, D.Wright, Y.Wade (K.Smith, 55 mins), A.Wilson, J.Samuels, Q.Aberdeen (T.Webb, 65 mins), L.Hypolite, M.Ray, E.Weldon.

Referee: Cal Simons.

Men of the match: Randy Boyles (Hotels); Leonard Hypolite (Devonshire Colts).