Naps, Pres showdown in Marabella

The show­down, card­ed for the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la from 3:30 pm, will be the fea­ture match of the round and will ei­ther push the lead­ers and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons to 32 points or el­e­vate Pre­sen­ta­tion to 28 points.

The math­e­mat­ics though is that a loss for Naps will al­low the St An­tho­ny's Tigers, sec­ond on 26 points, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take the lead for the first time on a su­pe­ri­or goal dif­fer­ence should they de­feat San Juan North away.

On Tues­day, Naps man­ag­er Per­cy Sam­lals­ingh said they will ap­proach the game like any oth­er but said he is hope­ful his play­ers will get the job done. Na­pari­ma, win­ners of the SS­FL League, South Zone In­ter­col and Co­ca Co­la Na­tion­al In­ter­col ti­tles last year, have en­joyed the bet­ter of the ex­changes be­tween the two teams, start­ing this year with their tri­umph at the open­ing Dig­i­cel Cup over their arch-ri­vals in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber.

Ac­cord­ing to Sam­lals­ingh, "I ex­pect the game to be a mas­sive show­down and that will gen­er­ate a huge crowd. Our in­ten­tion is to win all our re­main­ing games be­cause we can­not af­ford to de­pend on any oth­er team. So all we have to do is ex­e­cute."

Pre­sen­ta­tion goal­keep­er coach Jef­fer­son George, who filled in for head coach Shawn Coop­er yes­ter­day, said his team will be com­ing with more fire­pow­er to­day be­cause of the ef­fect it could have in de­ter­min­ing the over­all win­ner.

"When we analysed our past match­es with Naps we re­alised that our biggest prob­lem was our goalscor­ing. We have al­ways had close en­coun­ters with them but we al­ways lose be­cause we do not put our chances away and this is what we have been work­ing on for to­day (Tues­day)," George told Guardian Me­dia Sports.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege opt­ed not to face Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) in a re­vised match on Mon­day at the same venue to prop­er­ly pre­pare for Na­pari­ma. The coach said the coach­ing staff is full of con­fi­dence in the team's de­fence, which he point­ed out had con­ced­ed the least amount of goals for the sea­son to date.

"I be­lieve we will be ca­pa­ble of cop­ing with any­thing at­tack that Naps will come with, de­spite hav­ing a lot of re­al­ly tal­ent­ed play­ers in Isa Bram­ble, Seon Ship­p­ley and oth­ers. That has al­ways been the coach's for­mat, to be steady in the de­fence, so we just have to go out there and con­vert our chances," George said.

Mean­while, sixth-placed QRC will have a date with Mal­ick Sec­ondary at QRC and fourth-placed Cara­pichaima will be up against St Bene­dict's at home.

TO­DAY'S MATCH­ES

QRC vs Mal­ick @ QRC

Pre­sen­ta­tion vs Naps @Man­nie Ramjohn

San­Juan North vs St An­tho­ny's @ San Juan

Cara­pichaima vs St Bene­dict's @ Cara­pichaima

East Mu­cu­rapo vs CIC @ Fa­ti­ma

St Au­gus­tine vs Trin­i­ty Mo­ka @St Au­gus­tine

Pleas­antville vs Trin­i­ty East @ Pleas­antville

Lat­est Team Stand­ings

Team*P*W*L*D*GF*GA*GD*PTS
1*Na­pari­ma Col­lege*11*9*0*2*30*10*+20*29
2*St. An­tho­ny's Col­lege*11*8*1*2*37*11*+26*26
3*Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege*10*8*1*1*26*6*+20*25
4*Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary*11*6*1*4*21*14*+7*22
5*East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary*11*6*2*3*23*11*+12*21
6*Queen's Roy­al Col­lege*11*6*3*1*22*24*-2*19
7*San Juan North Sec­ondary*11*5*4*2*26*10*+16*17
8*St. Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary*11*3*4*4*26*21*+5*13
9*Pleas­antville Sec­ondary*11*4*6*1*15*17*-2*13
10*Trin­i­ty Col­lege East*11*3*6*2*14*19*-5*11
11*Spey­side High School*12*3*7*2*18*37*-19*11
12*St. Bene­dict's Col­lege*11*3*7*1*12*20*-8*10
13*Mal­ick Sec­ondary*12*3*8*1*18*27*-9*10
14*Trin­i­ty Col­lege (Mo­ka)*11*1*9*1*13*40*-27*4
15*St. Mary's Col­lege*11*1*9*1*5*39*-34*4