Trinidad and Tobago’s Senior Men’s team got a n equalizing goal from Central FC forward Marcus Joseph in the 93rd minute of play to secure a 2-2 draw with Grenada in an international friendly at the National Stadium in St George’s on Saturday night.
The game was used by head coach Stephen Hart and his staff to assess the home-based professionals selected for the match in the build up to the upcoming 2018 World Cup qualifiers versus St Vincent and the Grenadines on March 25th and 29th.
T&T took a 25th minute lead through DirecTV W Connection forward Shahdon Winchester before Jamal Charles tied it up for the hosts just before half time. Grenada would take a 2-1 lead against the run of play in the 49th minute through Jake Rennie.
T&T had four senior international debutants in its starting team – Jerwyn Balthazar, Tristan Hodge, Elijah Belgrave and Jamali Garcia with goalkeeper Marvin Phillip in goal, Daneil Cyrus marshaling the defence, Sean De Silva, Jomal Williams, Hughtun Hector and Leston Paul in the middle and Winchester up top.
Goalkeeper Adrian Foncette also made his debut when he replaced Phillip at half time with the other debutants appearing in the second half including Makesi Lewis, Andre Ettienne and Nathaniel Garcia. Belgium-based midfielder Khaleem Hyland was excused by Hart from the match and did not travel to Grenada.
T&T squandered several goalscoring chances, according to Hart in his post game comments, with Winchester missing a one on one as well another glorious chance while Makesi Lewis, Jomal Williams had two great chances and Hughtun Hector also missed opportunities to get on the scoresheet.
“We completely dominated the first half in terms of ball possession, probably 80 to 20 percent in our favour.We created a number of chanced and the game should have been completed in the first half but wasteful finishing meant a different story,” Hart told TTFA Media from St. George’s after the match.
“We made some changes in the second half and the intensity dropped but we still had better possession and we created chances again. They had three good chances of which they scored two. They were more clinical in front of goal. They played the game in the right spirit and all credit to them” Hart added.
“Generally we possessed the ball well, we moved it well we got into good positions and created chances. There is not much more than you can really do but if you don’t take your chances this can happen.
“We always looked like we would score but the way the game was going and the way we were squandering chances you had a feeling it would be one of those games but we kept plugging away and we got the goal at the end,” Hart ended.
T&T Line Up
Marvin Phillip (Adrian Foncette, 46’); Jamali Garcia (Andre Ettienne, 70’), Elijah Belgrave, Daneil Cyrus (Curtis Gonzales), Tristan Hodge, Hughtun Hector (Nathaniel Garcia, 81’), Leston Paul, Sean De Silva, Jomal Williams (Jason Marcano, 65’), Jerwyn Balthazar (Marcus Joseph, 56’), Shahdon Winchester (Makesi Lewis, 56’)