Redemption time for Constant Spring

Nodley Wright, Staff Reporter

AFTER mauling in the end of first round final, Constant Spring will have a chance to settle matters in the second set of games in the Craven A National Premier League football competition.

Today at 3:00 pm they go up against defending champions Arnett Gardens at Tony Spaulding Sports Complex in one of five matches scheduled in the competition today.

A little way down the road, Tivoli Gardens will continue their mission of winning each match in this round. They dispatched the embattled Harbour View 2-1 last week and today host Village who lost their opening game 0-1 to Arnett Gardens.

Also in action today are Hazard who failed by a point to make the end of round final. They tackle struggling Waterhouse at Ferdie Neita Park which serves as home ground for both teams.

One game which is certain to be of major interest is the Duhaney Park/Wadadah fixture which takes place at Constant Spring. This game will mark the official return to the bench for former national and Waterhouse coach, Geoffrey Maxwell.

In the sole game taking place in western Jamaica, Reno who played to a 0-0 draw with Waterhouse last week go up against Harbour View who have been experiencing mixed results since then coach of Waterhouse, Chris Ziadie threatened his team to a 1-0 win over them.

All these games will follow 12:30 Under-21 fixtures between the same teams at the same venues. For the Tony Spaulding Complex matchup between the two teams, the approach and focus of the two coaches could not be more different. On one hand, Jerome Waite, who is never satisfied with a performance, is thinking of consolidation while Maurice "Danny" Lyn is intent on righting the wrongs meted out to his team at Harbour View in the December 16, end of round final.

"I expect that Constant Spring will be coming with a lot of vengeance. They won the first round and this is the second round. We have won the final so this is a matter of Arnett Gardens coming to redeem themselves in the second round seeing that we lost the first round," said Waite who added that he does not see the end of round rout as redemption.

Constant Spring trampled Arnett Gardens for a 4-2 in the first round but got beaten 5-1 in the final.

Of today's game Lyn said: "I do not know how to put it quite frankly. We have won one, they have won the other so this is the tie-breaker. "The last game we were humiliated, demolished quite frankly. I do not think Constant Spring reported in the right frame of mind. We just did not turn up on the day. It was just one of those days that nothing fired for us. We did not play well and we looked bad," explained Lyn.

Since that time Lyn and his coaching staff have taken stock of their team and have made the adequate adjustments for this round. Among the problems his team had then according to Lyn, was youth and inexperience. To offset this they have resurrected the veteran and faithful servant over the years, Lincoln Taffe.

TODAY'S GAMES