St. David’s Warriors 0 Devonshire Colts 1

Devonshire Colts are in the hat for the next round of the FA Cup after a battling 1-0 win over St. David’s Warriors on Sunday.

Daniel Ball kept his composure to send goalkeeper Mackai Gittens the wrong way with his penalty to score the only goal of the game and put the 2007 winners through much to the delight of coach Ray Jones.

“For us, the FA Cup is extra,” Jones said. “Our main focus is getting points in the league right now so we rotated the team a little. I thought defensively that we looked sound but I think we lacked a bit of imagination in the final third to create chances, which made the game a bit more difficult.

“Overall, we had one objective which was to get our name in the hat for the next round so I’m happy this was accomplished.”

In a match lacking goalscoring opportunities and flair, Devonshire Colts came closest to opening the scoring in the first half when Gittens did well to advance and spread himself to block the ball as Treshun Smith raced through in a one-on-one situation.

Gittens also had to be at his best when K’Zhai Bailey’s goalbound shot took a deflection off a defender to wrongfoot the goalkeeper only for him to make a diving, spectacular one-handed save to keep the game scoreless at the break.

St. David’s started the second half well and were gifted two opportunities to score. A long kick forward from Gittens forced Colts’ Ayrton Van Duyne to make a rushed backpass to goalkeeper Lejuan Matthews, who handled the ball under pressure from forward Aaron Paynter inside the box but the resulting free-kick was blocked by an onrushing wall of players.

Minutes later, Van Duyne played another backpass to Matthews who miscontrolled the ball but was just able to beat the onrushing Khe’ary Swan to the loose ball to clear it to safety.

Devonshire Colts then deflated the Warriors tempo and scored against the run of play when substitute Jahzah Steede was through on goal but brought down by Gittens.

Referee Anthony Francis was given the easy task of awarding a penalty and Ball kept his composure to sidefoot into the right corner of Gittens’ net as the goalkeeper dived in the opposite direction to advance his team into the next round.

SCORER

Devonshire: D Ball 75 pen

TEAMS

St. David’s Warriors (4-2-3-1): M Gittens 7 --- S Campbell 6 (sub: S Fox, 66min 5), D Butterfield 6, A Simons 6, Z Scott 6 --- A Cannonier 6, M Proctor 6 (sub: N Tucker-Talbot, 66 5) --- I Castro 7, D McCallan 6 (sub: K Swan, 66 6), T McCallan 6 (sub: M Robinson, 87) --- A Paynter 6. Substitutes not used: J Jervis, N Maharaj, D Minors. Booked: S Campbell, M Gittens.

Devonshire Colts (4-2-3-1): L Matthews 6 --- J Saunders 6, S Thomas 6, A Van Duyne 6, D Davis 5 --- K Bailey 6, D Ball 7 --- T Axelsen 5 (sub: J Steede, 68 6), T Smith 6, J Paynter 5 (sub: E Weldon, 29 5) (sub: D Lambe, 83) --- K Burch 6 (sub: A Famous, 83). Substitutes not used: K Ball, J Fleming, I Lee.

Referee: A Francis