North Village 0 St George’s 4

Jonté Smith scored a hat-trick to propel St George’s to their first FA Cup success by stunning eight-man North Village at the Dame Flora Duffy Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Two goals in either half, with Blaiz Hall’s penalty supplementing Smith’s heroics, were more than enough to see off Village, who had three players sent off and round off a dismal week after losing the Premier Division title decider 3-2 to PHC at the same stadium on Tuesday night.

Kenny Thompson’s side, who went into the final hunting for their eleventh title, had Tre Ming, Troy Tucker and Jalen Harvey sent off by referee Amaury Majors in the second half to compound their woes.

Smith, who could have scored four goals had his first-half penalty not been saved by Detre Bell, spoke of what it means to win silverware for St George’s.

“It means a lot for us to win the FA Cup and we’ve been working hard, grinding to win a trophy for this club,’’ Smith said.

“This community’s been through a lot of hurt these last few years. We lost a lot of young footballers and a lot of young, talented, intelligent individuals.

“St George’s is a community and we’ve been working hard and pulling together to have a moment like this to celebrate for all of them.

Smith revealed the mental strength it took to overcome missing that first-half penalty, which was saved by Village goalkeeper Detre Bell.

“No striker wants to miss a penalty, but at the end of the day bad moments don’t define your performance,’’ Smith said.

“One bad moment gave me the hunger to go on and score more goals. That’s probably the first penalty I've missed in about 30. It happens but you’ve just got to have the right mentality and a good group of players behind you to keep you going.

“We knew going into the final that Village had a hard week. It was a tough week for them physically and mentally, so we knew we had to start fast, ideally get the first goal and put pressure on them.”

Kashe Hall, the St George’s captain was keen to point out the togetherness possessed by the St George’s squad.

“We worked hard, stayed together and stayed positive,’’ Hall said. “Normally we concede a goal and lose focus, but I think staying positive is what kept us in the game.

“We’ve had a tough few years, losing Freddy Hall and Osagi Bascome. This victory is really for them and all the youth around looking up to us.”

St George’s coach Jarreau Hayward saluted his players for the determination as he takes place in history at St George’s.

“Congratulations to the players and they deserved it,” Hayward said.

“It’s been a lot of hard work and they deserved it. They showed up today and did what I asked them. They know who they are, we know who they are and now the whole island knows who they are.”

Hayward revealed his players had not been given extra motivation by Ming’s pre-match comments.

“We were already inspired,’’ the St George’s coach said. “Everything that we needed was already innate inside of us and any extra motivation would not have added to the commitment we already had within ourselves, our club and our community.

“This is years of hard work coming to fruition now and, to be honest, this is not the last. So, we’re looking to the next step.”

Blaiz Hall, mesmerising for St George’s during the 90 minutes, started things off with a brilliant run on the left to send the ball into the box for Smith to open the scoring in the nineteenth minute.

Village responded immediately, with Jahquil Hill tipping Harvey’s close range header over the bar in the 22nd minute.

Smith had a great opportunity to extend his side’s lead when Majors, after a few seconds of hesitation, pointed to the spot after Paul Simons tumbled inside the box. Bell dived to his right to save the penalty to keep Village in the match and gathered the ball when Smith went for the rebound.

In the 33rd minute, Smith had his second goal with the forward poking the ball in after some lovely work from the St George’s captain.

One of the match’s talking points came in the 54th minute when Jaizel Smith-DeShields handled the ball before he scored. Majors first pointed to the centre and even allowed St George’s to restart, only for the referee to disallow the goal after some consultations.

Village were reduced to ten men in the 75th minute, with Majors not taking kindly to Ming questioning his decision to award St George’s a second penalty when Blaiz Hall was impeded by Tarreko Wilson.

Hall made sure from the spot to put the result beyond doubt despite Bell almost stopping the ball with his legs.

Tucker became the second Village to see red three minutes before the end. Already on a yellow card earned in the first half, Tucker received his second booking for bringing down Manoj Paynter.

Smith completed his hat-trick a minute into stoppage time when he got the ball behind Bell.

Harvey became the third Village player sent off in the 93rd minute. Having been booked for a 78th minute push on Paynter, the winger picked up a red card for showing dissent soon after winning his team a free kick.

Village goalkeeper Bell was also shown a red card after the final whistle for showing his displeasure towards the official.

SCORERS

St George’s: Smith 19, 33, 90+1, Hall 75 pen