By Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport EditorROAD KINGS Village United exploded in a rage after suffering their first away loss this season,
They crashed to a controversial 2-1 defeat against Tivoli Gardens at Railway Oval as the Wray and Nephew National Premier League second round started yesterday.
The Trelawny team conceded a penalty to fall behind at the 73rd minute, but felt unlucky not have been awarded even one of their own while fighting bitterly to save the game.
Their fury seemed justified as the ball hit the hand of opposing players inside Tivoli's penalty box at least twice in the remaining minutes of a very competitive game.
"The ref was very dishonest. It was very obvious that the ref was being very dishonest," shouted a very perplexed Lloyd Williams, Village United's coach.
Referring to the number of occasions he thought his team earned a penalty call, Williams said there were "...two clear ones."
"It was very obvious in the last 15 minutes of the game. Both of them stopped the ball from going forward. That was a clear hand ball. He should've given us a penalty."
The Trelawny man said Hughill Thompson was fearful to award the decisions to his team.
"Players aren't afraid to come to Tivoli to play, why must a ref be afraid?, And a ref of his calibre as well," he charged of the FIFA man. "These things are mashing up the sport. The JFF need to review the tapes."
The Trelawny team had won five of its previous six outings while accumulating 19 points.
SET-UP
Teofore Bennett gave them a glimpse of a sixth with a goal at the 12th minute after being set-up by burly strike partner Warren Ukah.
Tivoli, which started the game on 18 points, responded well to the challenge of conceding a goal early and put the visitors under huge pressure.
They ran Village ragged in the process and went close to scoring an equaliser on several occasions before a predictable combination - regular defender Denroy Gordon, giving a very inspired performance in midfield, dribbled between two opponents and fired in a low cross to the unmarked Andrew Chisholm, who had gone close to scoring four times earlier.
Chisholm made no mistake this time, heading past goalie Elvis Hart at the 35th minute for a 1-1 scoreline.
Tivoli maintained the upper hand until the beginning of the second half when Village stopped kicking the ball from defence and resumed playing to make a good sequence of counter-attacking.
Tivoli threatened goal more and got their go-ahead opportunity at the 73rd minute when Chisholm's shot hit from just outside the penalty box hit the hand of Chris Dawes at point blank range and Thompson blew for a penalty. Nonchalantly, Christopher Nicholas took two steps and scored the game winner.
"It's a good one," was Tivoli's coach, Glendon 'Admiral' Bailey's opinion of the win. "This team was ahead of us and by winning we've gone ahead of them. It was a must-win game."
