Anthony Minott, Gleaner Writer

Sporting Central's head coach, Christopher Dawes, is happy with the point his team took off defending champions Portmore United in the Digicel Premier League match at Ferdie Neita Park on Sunday night.

"Excellent. We came here to win but we got a point at Portmore and only a few teams can do that and I think that's an excellent result," said Dawes.

"We got a penalty in the first half and we didn't capitalise on that, but if you are harbouring thoughts of winning the league, you have to come here (Ferdie Nieta Park) and take a point or three against Portmore and we did get a point, and that's a good step forward," he said.

The draw inched Portmore to 12 points, second behind leaders Harbour View with 14, while Sporting moved to nine.

Portmore's technical director, Donovan Duckie, was not pleased with the result.

"I'm a little bit disappointed about the finishing tonight, but I also think it was a good effort from the guys, they really played well," he said.

"Sporting Central, I thought, were compact in the first half and played behind the ball, so it was a little bit difficult to break them down. In the second half, we started to move the ball around and do some flank rotation and we penetrated a lot and we created good chances. But what's important is we didn't give up a goal, that means we were close to winning the game," he opined.

Midfielders

Sporting dominated the first half with fluent ball movement from their midfielders, but their attackers squandered numerous chances.

They were awarded a penalty around the half-hour mark due to a handball by a Portmore defender inside their 18-yard box, but Alanzo Adlam put the penalty kick wide, much to the discontent of the Sporting fans who travelled to watch the clash dubbed 'Clarendon derby'. Both teams have their origins from that parish.

Nine minutes later, Sporting Central were again on the prowl as the speedy Hughan Gray darted towards the penalty box and fired over Shawn Sawyers' crossbar from the left side.

Portmore came into their own in the second half and if not for goalkeeper Erron Brown, they could have taken the lead on a couple of occasions. Sporting, however, got the first real chance of the second half, as Gray made another of his telling dribbles. He squeezed his way past a couple of Portmore defenders before shooting over the top in the 58th minute.

Point-blank range

In the meantime, Portmore pushed more players in attack and this almost paid dividends when Steven Morrissey shot from pointblank range, but could only watch as Brown superbly parried his effort away.

A minute later, Loxley Thomas headed inches wide of the right upright as Portmore hunted the elusive goal.

At the other end Sporting's Adlam forced Saywers to dive low to stop a ball from hitting his net two minutes later.

Morrissey's last-gasp effort to get a goal in the dying moments was snuffed out by Brown, diving full stretch to block the Portmore's striker powerful attempt.