- Patrick Campbell/Staff Photographer
Triston Cunningham (right), captain of the Frome Techncial team, accepts the daCosta Cup from Peter Hibbert of Sports Plus (left) and a representative of Pepsi (centre) following yesterday's 1-0 win over Titchfield at Jarrett Park.
Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
FROME TECHNICAL High captured their first national football title yesterday when they turned back a determined Titchfield High 1-0 in the final of the ISSA Pepsi/Sports Plus daCosta Cup final at Jarrett Park.
After being put under pressure for most of the first half, the Westmoreland team came out stronger in the second half and Adrian Robinson capped their efforts with a well-taken header in the 60th minute.
Frome Technical, contesting their first ever schoolboy football final, became the ninth school to win the title and sixth western school to lift the trophy since the competition started in 1950.
For Titchfield, it was their second loss in a final at Jarrett Park following their 1-0 defeat by Cornwall College in 1982.
It was a double celebration for Westmoreland as Mannings School won the ISSA rural area Under-16 Umbro title earlier, beating Happy Grove 2-0 with Darion McNain scoring both goals. Mannings won the Galloway Cup earlier in the week while Happy Grove had collected the mid-island Dr. Abner Wright title.
New champions Frome Technical and Titchfield High gave the large turnout a lot to cheer for and the final was one of the best seen in a long time as both teams went at each other from the get go.
GOOD CHANCES
They had good chances of scoring throughout the game and both goalkeepers were kept busy.
Robinson got the decider on the stroke of the hour mark when he out-jumped the Titchfield defence to head a free kick, swung in from the right side by Errol Bryan, powerfully past goalkeeper Delroy Richards and into the far corner of the net.
Titchfield's coach, Andrew Edwards, used Marvin Fagan, who had walked out of the team as one of his three substitutes and explained to members of the press afterwards that the player had apologised to the team and the players voted to accept him back.
He was at a loss as to why his team failed to carry over their strong first-half performance to the second half. He told The Sunday Gleaner after the game that "I am not sure what happened in the second half, I will need to talk to the players and find out from them. I think I did all I could and they had to take it on" adding that the team "lost it mentally in second half".
PERFORMED UP TO EXPECTATIONS
Frome's coach Boysie Nicholson was elated, telling The Sunday Gleaner that the team performed up to expectations, especially in the second half after it was able to make some adjustments and take the game to Titchfield.
"We had a poor first half but came out running in the second half, came out fighting and that made the difference," he said. Nicholson said they saw a different formation than they expected at the start and it took them some time to adjust, "they tricked us in the first half. When we played them in the Ben Francis, they had two wide players and one in the middle, this time they changed with two in the middle and this worried us a bit in the first half."
