Soca Warriors blast BVI 4-0

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s footballers gained a big advantage in their opening second round Digicel Caribbean Cup encounter with a comfortable 4-0 victory yesterday over the British Virgin Islands (BVI) at the Shirley Recreation Ground. The Soca Warriors got off to a quick start and went ahead in the seventh minute when striker Nigel Pierre met a short free kick and drilled a low right footed shot home from 25 yards out to send TT ahead 1-0. The homeside, which held St Vincent and the Grenadines 1-1 and then shocked Bermuda 2-0, refused to let the early setback deter them and kept the visitors scoreless for the remainder of the half.

The second goal didn’t come until the 65th minute as Pierre was again the man on target as he collected a right side cross and nailed his shot home from inside the penalty area. Four minutes later, TT, captained by Angus Eve, put the match out of BVI’s reach with a well taken item. This time it was Kerwyn Jemmot meeting a left side delivery and rather than shooting to goal, he surprised his man by dribbling before calmly slotting home from just inside the box for a 3-0 TT advantage. The match was seen by about 400 fans which included a contingent of about 60 Trinidad and Tobago fans living on the island.

Then Silvio Spann, who replaced Jemmot in the 78th minute, put his name on the scoresheet, pushing the score to 4-0 when he collected from fellow substitute Stephen Cruickshank and moved away from a couple defenders to then direct his shot away from the goalie. Coach Bertille St Clair said the result was a good one away from home. “This is a competition so we did not go into the match expecting them to give us an easy time and the end result turned out to be in favour of us. It was good to see us scoring four goals in their home ground and hopefully we can take this sort of game into the next match and the other matches to follow,” St Clair said after the win.

“We have things to work on but the guys are improving bit by bit and we hope to keep this up,” he added. The TT team returns home tonight and will continue preparations for the return match on December 19.  Once victorious in this tie, TT will advance to the third round to be played on January 9 and 16 where they will meet the winner of the St Vincent and the Grenadines/Grenada tie. The final round of four teams to determine the Caribbean champions will be played in Barbados in February 20-24 from which three teams will also advance to the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the USA in July, 2005.

TT line up: Duarance Williams, Anton Pierre, Avery John, Derek King, Keyeno Thomas, Angus Eve, Densil Theobald, Kerwyn Jemmot (Silvio Spann, 78th)  Leslie Fitzpatrick Cornell Glen (Stephen Cuickshank, 62nd), Nigel Pierre (Conrod Smith, 71st).