Cooper: 'Pres' no stranger to pressure situations

His team's un­beat­en run for the sea­son was bro­ken by south­ern ri­val Na­pari­ma Col­lege on Wednes­day (3-1), there­by, clos­ing the gap be­tween the teams to a sin­gle point with two more match­es to go. The de­feat left Pre­sen­ta­tion on 29 points at the top and Coop­er ad­mit­ted that his play­ers were dis­ap­point­ed with the loss, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­ing from its south­ern ri­val.

But his con­cern now ap­pears much deep­er than just a de­feat to Na­pari­ma, as Coop­er is grap­pling to find a re­place­ment for sus­pend­ed cen­tral de­fend­er Justin Corn­wall, who was giv­en march­ing or­ders by the ref­er­ee for two book­able of­fences against Na­pari­ma.

"We will have a ses­sion this af­ter­noon (yes­ter­day) at which time I will de­ter­mine who can be put in as a re­place­ment for Corn­wall, or what ad­just­ments we will have to make for the match against St An­tho­ny's," Coop­er ex­plained.

"The good thing about this af­ter­noon's match is that we will be at home so that eas­es the wor­ry some­what. I think, we at Pre­sen­ta­tion, are aware of what we have to do, to get the job done, and it is what we in­tend to do. The oth­er teams in the three-team race such as San Juan and Na­pari­ma al­so have to win to have a chance at the ti­tle so I hope they don't think that win­ning to­day is on­ly for Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege."

A win for Pre­sen­ta­tion on Wednes­day iron­i­cal­ly would have as­sured them a re­peat of the ti­tle but now they need a win to­day, with both Na­pari­ma on 28 points, host­ing an im­prov­ing Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) out­fit at Lewis Street in San Fer­nan­do.

The Roy­alians have not had the re­sults to match their per­for­mances all sea­son and coach­es Nigel Grovs­nor and Ken­wyne Jones will be hop­ing that their late turn of form, will help their move up the stand­ings with a vic­to­ry.

Mean­while, San Juan North, the on­ly oth­er team with a chance of clinch­ing the ti­tle, will be at home to St Bene­dict's Col­lege. The San Juan men, known pop­u­lar­ly as "Bourg" are on 26 points and a win will take them to 29 this af­ter­noon.

Bish­op's High of To­ba­go faces cer­tain rel­e­ga­tion, along with Fa­ti­ma, which will be on a bye to­day. All match­es be­gin at 3.40 pm.

TO­DAY'S MATCH­ES

Bish­op's High vs East Mu­cu­rapo, To­ba­go

Cara­pichaima East vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, Cara­pichaima

Na­pari­ma vs QRC, Lewis Street

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege vs St An­tho­ny's, Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um

San Juan North vs St Bene­dict's Col­lege, San Juan

St Au­gus­tine Sec vs Va­len­cia, St Au­gus­tine

Trin­i­ty Mo­ka vs St Mary's, Mo­ka

SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion Stand­ings

Team*P*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*Pts
1*Pre­sen­ta­tion*12*9*2*1*26*10*16*29
2*Na­pari­ma*12*8*4*0*24*9*15*28
3*San Juan*12*8*2*2*23*14*9*26
4*St Bene­dict's*13*6*3*4*22*20*2*21
5*Cara­pichaima*12*6*2*4*23*21*2*20
6*QRC*12*5*4*3*18*10*8*19
7*Trin­i­ty Mo­ka*12*5*4*3*20*24*-4*19
8*St Au­gus­tine*12*5*2*5*25*21*4*17
9*Trin­i­ty East*12*3*7*2*13*10*3*16
10*St An­tho­ny's*12*4*3*5*21*20*1*15
11*Mu­cu­rapo*12*4*2*6*17*21*-4*14
12*Va­len­cia*12*2*3*7*16*28*-12*9
13*St Mary's*11*2*2*7*14*20*-6*8
14*Fa­ti­ma*13*2*2*9*11*21*-10*8
15*Bish­op's To­ba­go*13*0*2*11*12*36*-24*2