By Dean “The Sportsman” Greenaway
A VG United player heads the ball ahead of his Lion Heart opponent
Lion Heart prevented Virgin Gorda United from returning to their winning ways after losing to defending champs Wolues 1-0 last week, by scoring a late second half goal to tie the visitors 1-1 on Sunday in Greenland, in BVI Football Association Men’ s League play.
VG United’s Shamar Ollivierre scored 22 minutes into the second half for a 1-0 lead.
Janel Ferdinand scored 12 minutes later off a rebound to knot the game at 1-1, placing the ball past the Goalie and a defender’s hand. Both defenses held the rest of the way.
“Another tough one. Back-to-back weeks I could tell you, it’s just our luck. After facing Wolues and going down, coming to Lion Heart was a tough opponent,” VG United manager Jermaine Abrams told Island Sun Sports. “We got up early, thought it was comfortable, but they never let up. They’re organized, a well-structured team, their keeper is excellent. We had the opportunities but in Football, you don’t win until you put the ball in the back of the net. I’m happy to come out with a draw. At the end, they really were bringing it to us.”
Abrams said Lion Heart is a different team to last year, which is good for the competition and they’re meeting teams that put up a fight every week.
“We’re going on a useful break. We have two more games to complete the first half and we have to use the break to work on our composure—we lose it a lot sometimes,” he noted. “Once you meet these high intensity teams, they’re going to catch you off guard. A goal coming off a dead ball is a no, no for a team. That’s a good coaching point for the team. If it’s a live ball coming at you, you get beat, that’s it but not from a dead ball. Not from a spot kick.”
Coach Lenroy “Left” Henry said that Lion Heart played a good defensive game but lacked a little technical work in the middle. “Instead of playing the long ball in the air, we’re concentrating on playing the ball more on the floor,” Henry in his first year coaching the team explained as opposed to last season. “We’re playing more possession football instead of playing the long ball. We’re playing short and moving the spacing. But I believe both teams deserved a point. Both teams played well.”
Among the league’s top teams so far this season, Henry said they’re attacking more and going into the second half doing the same things, he believes that they could win the competition.
“We need to be more relaxed with the ball,” he said. “Instead of hustling the play, just concentrate on keeping the ball in our possession and keeping the ball more in the opponent’s half of the field instead of our half of the field and then we should be okay.”
Defending champs Wolues overcame Positive’s 0-1 halftime advantage, outscoring them 5-0 in during a 6-2 victory. Alexander Edwards had a brace with scores in the 52nd and 62nd. Charlie Potgieter’s brace came in the 79th and 90+1. Hugo Lizário scored his eight goal of the season in the 64th and James Malley also scored in the 70th.
Derol Redhead led Sugar Boys to their second victory of the season with a quadruple of goals in their 10-0 win over cross town rivals and newcomers, Avengers. Redhead’s barrage included scores in the 53rd, 68th, 71st and 89th. Other goals came from McGraw Baptiste’s penalty, (20); Aron Jules, (33,64); Andreas Bailey, (55, 74) and Akeem Hendrickson (61).
Antonio Rodney had a brace (1,29) to extend his league leading goals to 13, as Islanders settled for a 2-2 draw with the Panthers. Nigel Sanderson (34’ penalty kick, 45+1’) kept pace, bringing his season total to 11 goals.
