Football: Transitional league division one |14 June 2019

Ten-man Foresters sneak past Victoria City

Ten-man Foresters rallied from a goal down to sneak past Victoria City 2-1 at Stad Linite on Wednesday evening in a first division Transitional league fixture.

Foresters started brightly on this heavy pitch affected by the heavy downpour but trailed in the 23rd minute when City defenders Kalvin Hall headed his team into the lead for a 1-0 score.

Foresters though leveled matters only three minutes later when striker Francis Nourrice capitalised on a slip by Victoria City goalkeeper Randolph Bijoux on this wet pitch to make it 1-1 and Foresters even took the lead in the 39th minute when poor marking allowed Brian Dorby to head his team into a 2-1 lead at half-time.

City showed more urgency in the second period and were given a boost in the 67th minute when Foresters defender Vanerick Michel, who had received a yellow card on the stroke of half-time, was this time issued a second yellow and thus his marching orders by referee Egbert Havelock for a crude tackle.

Foresters though fell back to defend their lead and managed to keep their opponents at bay to register their second win on the trot while City lost for the second consecutive match.

Foresters coach Harold Hoareau was quite pleased with his team’s progress since he took over this March where they are now unbeaten in eight matches.

“We started strongly in the first half but conceded against the run of play though we fought back and scored twice and could even had a couple more goals but in the second half, we had to regroup after we had a player sent off and we defended deeply and relied on the counter to win and preserve our eight-match unbeaten run which shows that we are on the right track,” revealed coach Hoareau.

As for City manager Chanel Monthy, he felt his team’s lack of concentration and discipline cost them the points in a match where they had targeted a win.

“It was unfortunate that we could not keep our lead for long due to a defensive mistake and then a lack of focus also caused us to concede a second goal. However, we played much better in the second half but we just failed to score though we are quite pleased with our performance as the players tried their best in a quite decent showing,” explained the City manager.

R. J-L.

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Published: 14-06-2019