Pres, San Juan battle for SSFL lead

Both teams are on 25 points, hav­ing played un­beat­en so far, but with 'Pres' en­joy­ing the top spot based on a su­pe­ri­or goal dif­fer­en­tial, coach Shawn Coop­er's men will be re­quired to work twice as hard, play­ing away against the in-form San Juan.

Yes­ter­day Coop­er made it clear his plan is to get three points. He is pre­dict­ing a tough con­test against the Bourg Mu­la­tresse men who have an un­blem­ished record play­ing at home. "We need to be tight, at both the de­fence and in the at­tack, as well as lim­it the er­rors. They have got a num­ber of good play­ers, Boyce and com­pa­ny who have been at the top of their game, so I know they will be com­ing at us to­day," Coop­er said.

Coop­er, who has just re­turned to the south­ern gi­ants, from his un­suc­cess­ful stint with the T&T Women's team at the CON­CA­CAF Women's Cham­pi­onships in the Unit­ed States, said in spite of his team's un­beat­en run to date, his men will not be over­con­fi­dent go­ing in­to the en­counter. His main con­cern, how­ev­er, is that the weath­er con­di­tions will pro­vide for a good con­test.

Mean­while, third on the stand­ings with 22 points, Na­pari­ma Col­lege will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take sec­ond when they take on Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka at Mar­aval. A win for 'Naps' as they are com­mon­ly called, will put them on 25 points, and pos­si­bly in­to sec­ond on the chart, but on­ly if there is a win­ner in the San Juan and Pre­sen­ta­tion match.

A share of the points, how­ev­er, will keep the Na­pari­ma boys at third while both teams will con­tin­ue to rest at the top.

Fourth place Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, on the oth­er hand, will be at­tempt­ing to close the gap on the lead­ers. With just 14 points to its name af­ter nine match­es, the east­ern­ers will to­day trav­el to Ser­pen­tine Road, St Clair to face St Mary's Col­lege at home. And not too far away at QRC grounds, the home team will have a date with the mid­dle of the ta­ble Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary. All match­es be­gin at 3:40 pm.

TO­DAY'S MATCH­ES

Bish­op's High School vs St Bene­dict's, To­ba­go

East Mu­cu­rapo vs St An­tho­ny's Col­lege, Fa­ti­ma

QRC vs Cara­pichaima East, QRC

San Juan North vs Pre­sen­ta­tion (San Fer­nan­do), San Juan

St Mary's Col­lege vs Trin­i­ty East, CIC Grounds

Trin­i­ty Mo­ka vs Na­pari­ma, Mo­ka

Va­len­cia Sec vs Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Va­len­cia

Lat­est Stand­ings

Teams*P*W*D*L*GF*GA*PTS
1*Pres*9*8*1*0*22*5*25
2*San Juan*9*8*1*0*19*6*25
3*Naps*10*6*4*0*18*6*22
4*Trin­i­ty East*9*3*5*1*10*6*14
5*Trin­i­ty Mo­ka*8*4*2*2*14*16*14
6*St Au­gus­tine*9*4*1*4*17*15*13
7*Cara­pichaima*9*4*1*4*18*19*13
8*St An­tho­ny's*8*3*2*3*14*12*11
9*St Bene­dict's*8*3*2*3*10*8*11
10*QRC*9*2*4*3*10*9*10
11*East Mu­cu­rapo*9*2*2*5*11*17*8
12*Va­len­cia*9*2*1*6*11*22*7
13*Fa­ti­ma*10*2*1*7*9*17*7
14*St Mary's*8*1*2*5*7*13*5
15*Bish­op's High*10*0*1*9*10*29*1