It’s official: the SKNFA Premier League regular season has ended; the Super Six teams have been decided and the three teams that have been relegated have been confirmed. The six teams in the Super Six playoffs are: St. Paul’s United, Cayon Rockets, Village Superstars, Old Road United Jets, Conaree FC, and Newtown United. Let’s review the final match week matches that led to this outcome.
Jones Group Sandy Point FC, in a Friday night matchup, having already been relegated ended their season on a high defeating Newtown United 2-1 in Sandy Point.
Goal scorers:
Sylvester Caines (Newtown) 2nd min
T’Ondre Rouse (Sandy Point) 13th min
Zahmai Greene (Sandy Point) 80th min
Assistant coach of Sandy Point Kenneth Douglas said he is proud of his players and that they will be rebuilding in Division 1 with the aim to earn promotion back into the Premier League next season.
“Just wanna say congratulation to the guys. Although we have been losing games, we told them we have to get our win before we go to Division 1, and today they went out there and they played their all; they played with energy; they played with guts and we came home with the victory,” Douglas said.
Newtown’s coach Anthony “Nets” Isaac was very disappointed with the performance of his team. “Well, I’m very much disappointed about the results. I mean we came down here looking to go up another three points…but I’m very disappointed with the performance,” Isaac said. Also on Friday July 21, MFCR Old Road United Jets easily dispatched of Fast Cash Saddlers United 2-0 in Saddlers’ last match of the season.
Goal scorers:
Kaylon Liburd (Old Road) 45th +1 min
Jardel Isaac (Old Road) 56th min
On the Saturday of the final match week: St. Peters FC was trying to earn a playoff spot with a huge 5-2 win over Security Forces FC in Cayon. In the end, despite the big win, it was not enough to give them a playoff spot.
Goal scorers:
Shevene Boston (St. Peters) 8th min
Tyquan Terrell (St. Peters) 11th min
Deshawn Collins (St. Peters) 32nd min
Tyquan Terrell (St. Peters) 37th min
Shomari Hanley (St. Peters) 39th min
Julan Gordon (St. Peters own goal) 47th min
David Joseph (Security Forces) 58th min
Coach Austin Huggins of St. Peters offered his thoughts after the match. “We did well in terms of scoring goals. We did get five goals this evening, but in my estimation, we still lacking in the scoring department, because we wanted to get at least 11 goals,” he said.
Security Forces Assistant Coach George Kinta Gilbert said his team played a much more organized second half. “In the second half, we organized ourselves…in the first half it was just chaos,” he said. The following match also in Cayon, between Cayon and Conaree drew 0-0. Coach Al Edwards of Cayon said his team played a good match, despite not getting a goal.
“Our thoughts and focus now is tweak what we have (for the Super Six),” Edwards said. On the other hand, Conaree’s Coach Al Richards rued their missed chances. “I think at times we were a bit disorganized,” Richards said.
Over on Nevis that same day Bath United once again blew a lead to draw the match, this time against St. Paul’s United. Romario Daniel struck twice for Bath in the 8th & 42nd min before Keithroy Freeman scored in the 84th min and Nicquan Phipps in he 90th + 3 min to earn a point.
Meanwhile, the following day at the SKNFA technical center:
Garden Hotspurs (0) Vs. (5) Village Superstars
Goal scorers:
Joseph Wilkes (Village) 16th min
Devaughn Elliott (Village) 41st min
Caaja Burnham (Village) 45th + 1 min
Austin Henry (Village) 75th min
Tahir Hanley (Village) 90th min
Coach Stephen Clarke of Village, hailed his players for qualifying for the playoffs, after a very slow and hard start for his team this season. “The first round was not the best for us as a team and then we had a lot of injuries so we could not practically play consistently,” he explained. “The second round we were more consistent. Players were more consistent, not a lot of players missing so we ended up building a bit of momentum going forward,” he said, adding that the team has been playing well both defensively and attacking-wise.
Meanwhile, Coach Steven Brown of Spurs said they started the match well, but it went south after conceding an early goal. “I wanted the guys to come out today, have fun just to find back the love of playing football because we’ve been in a funk these past few weeks. We started well but conceded an early goal and it kind of went downhill from there,” he added.
On Tuesday, the action continued in Nevis, this time with Bath United winning—edging Old Road United Jets 1-0. The goal came from Chris Brown in 1st min of stoppage time. Then on Wednesday at the SKNFA Technical Center:
Village Superstars (2) Vs. (0) Newtown United
Leroy Hanley (Village) 18th min
Denis Fleming (Village) 34th min
Conaree (3) Vs. (0) St. Paul’s United
Anthony Grant (Conaree) 6th min
Errol O’Loughlin (Conaree)45th +25min
Javern Matthew (Conaree) 76th min
Football fans earnestly await the start of the 2023 Super Six playoffs, but first, there is the matter of the Concacaf Caribbean Club Shield, which will be held for the first time in St. Kitts and Nevis from August 3-13 at Warner Park and the SKNFA Technical Center.
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