Hamilton Parish 1

Dandy Town 2

Hamilton Parish blew another chance to go top of the Premier Division after crashing to their second straight home defeat as Dandy Town moved out of the bottom two.

Returning to Wellington Oval for the first time since their league opening defeat to St George’s, Town were deserving of the three points on a day they should have won by an even bigger margin.

Wasted chances kept Parish in the game in the second half before they scored in injury time through defender Mauriq Hill.

Clay Darrell, scored the first and set up the second for Temiko Wilson as the defending champions picked up their third win of the season.

The win, combined with a loss for Devonshire Cougars, means that the gap between Town, the defending champions, and the leaders, has been cut to five points. PHC now lead the standings on goal difference over Cougars.

Jomar Wilkinson, the Town coach, had good reason to be pleased with the result despite the one-goal margin of victory.

“Today was a very good performance by the team and a very important three points,” Wilkinson said. “We want to stay in the title race and today we sent a statement that we are in the title race.”

It was Town who broke the deadlock in the 28th minute with a well-taken goal by Darrell after some good passing outside the Parish penalty area. Darrell collected a pass on the right edge of the penalty box and drilled a firm shot inside Stefan Dill’s near post.

Town were down to ten men at the time with defender Kor-Von Tucker off the field receiving treatment.

Town continued their dominance in the second half with Wilson heading home in the 53rd minute to double his side’s lead. Darrell supplied the perfect cross from the right and Wilson placed a firm header past Dill who made a point blank save minutes later to deny Angelo Simmons.

Town had another glaring miss from Simmons after being put through by Wilson before lifting his shot over the goalkeeper and wide of the post from inside the box.

Substitute Casey Castle immediately began to make a difference in midfield, going back into his own penalty area to make a timely block from Simmons as he was shaping up to shoot and then smashing a shot at the other end that grazed the crossbar.

The goal by Hill two minutes into injury time only served as a consolation effort as Parish slipped to fourth in the table.