- Paul ReidAt left, is Titchfield's Denroy Wilson, leading scorer with 16 goals. At right, Frome's Shane Anderson (right) moves away from an opponent in a recent daCosta Cup match.
Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
FROME TECHNICAL High will be seeking their first ever daCosta Cup final berth while Titchfield High will be hoping to return for the first time since 1982 when they take on former champions Cornwall College and Clarendon College in the semi-finals this afternoon at 3:00.
Cornwall College, with a record 11 Cup titles, will meet Frome in a western derby at Jarrett Park while Clarendon College, who will be seeking their seventh crown, will meet Titchfield at Brancourt.
Winners must be decided from today's games for the November 29 final also at Jarrett Park, and of sudden-death extra-time and penalties will be used, if needed.
The Jarrett Park game will also bring to an end the triple title ambitions for one of the two teams as they are also taking part in next Wednesday's Ben Francis Knockout semi-finals.
Cornwall and Clarendon will go into their games without at least two regular starters who picked up cards in the Ben Francis quarter-final meeting between the teams on Wednesday.
TEAMS MATCH UP
The teams match up equally in terms of their season statistics with only one team, Titchfield losing more than once in the daCosta Cup competition.
Cornwall have the better record of the two teams meeting at Jarrett Park but Frome's coach, Boysie Nicholson, insists his team is the more 'talented' of the two.
Cornwall, who won the last of their 11 titles in 2001, have won 12 of the 15 games they have played this season, scoring 22 goals while conceding seven.
Frome have won nine of their 15 but have scored more goals, finding the net 32 times but they have also conceded 10.
The Dr. Dean Weatherly-coached Cornwall have been defensively sound, conceding just two goals in their past eight matches and have gone unbeaten in their past nine outings.
All that could amount for nought today, however, as Cornwall will be without influential players defender Andre Moore and leading scorer Jahvan Russell who has five goals.
In their absence, Lushane Brent Harris, Francoise Anderson, Charles Hinds and Andrew Brown should step up.
Weatherly told The Gleaner this week that he was confident his young team would rise to the occasion, pointing out it was improving with each game.
He conceded that his team was less experienced and smaller in stature to the Frome side but said the team which controlled the midfield would win.
Frome will have a score or two to settle as they were stopped twice at this stage by Cornwall in 2000, losing in the daCosta Cup semi-finals and in the Ben Francis Knockout final by one goal margins.
Nicholson played it safe in Wednesday's game against Titchfield by sitting out some of his top players who had received one or two cards and the side will be at full strength today.
Top-scorer Errol Bryan, who has scored nine times this season, and midfielder Steven Bennett will return to the starting team along with Ricardo Kerr, who came off the bench on Wednesday, and will join Jeolani Plummer and Alphanso Lewis who have combined for 10 goals so far, in trying to take Frome to their biggest game in school history.
Nicholson said he had seen Cornwall twice this season and was well aware of what they had to offer, describing them as "spirited".
He said he looked forward to playing Cornwall at Jarrett Park, adding that the expected large turnout would not affect his players, pointing out "spectators are restricted to the sidelines and cannot participate on the field".
Unlike the coaches of Cornwall and Frome, the coaches of the teams in the other game profess not to know much about each other, except for what they see in the media.
Both teams are coming off losses on Wednesday and cannot afford to lose today with the biggest prize of the season on the line.
EXTRA EFFORT
Titchfield's coach, Andrew Edwards, told The Gleaner that his team's performance in its 1-0 loss to Frome was "the worst of the season" but said the boys had taken it on themselves to put in the effort for today.
For the Portland school to return to the finals for the first time in 21 years, the competition's top-scorer, Denroy Wilson, must be more involved than he was on Wednesday. Anthony Bradshaw, Ryan McNeil and Andre Thomas, all of who were ineffective and substituted on Wednesday, will also need to step up against the Clarendon team's defence which has allowed only eight goals all season long and three since the start of the inter-zone round.
The Titchfield defence will have an easier job as over-lapping defender Rudolph Austin and Everton Blake, who have combined for 10 of Clarendon's 31 goals, will watch the game from the sidelines.
Coach Dennis Hutchinson will have to depend on Mario Harrison with 11 goals and Kenny Shelly to get past the Titchfield goalkeeper.
