North Village 3 Wolves 1

An under-strength North Village moved to the top of the Premier Division after winning an entertaining match at PHC Stadium yesterday.

Missing leading scorer Jonté Smith and defenders Terryn Fray and Tre Manders, who are preparing to travel to Argentina with the national cricket team, Village made light work of their opponents.

A brace from Jai Bean after an early Tre Ming opener secured all three points helping the Rams to leapfrog champions PHC, who play St George’s tomorrow night.

Moving to the Premier Division summit in the absence of key players satisfied coach Calvin Dill Jr.

“It was a hard-fought game,” Dill said. “Wolves came with some fight, which I told my team to expect. But at the end of the day, we got the three points, and we are now leading the table — at least for a couple of days.”

Village opened the scoring almost immediately. After stringing a number of passes through their midfield, Ming was put through and kept his composure to place his shot beyond the outstretched arms of Wolves goalkeeper Gatwoine Minors.

Village should have doubled their lead within minutes, but Bean shot over from a good position. On the half-hour mark, Wolves’ attacking midfielder Morriko Iris had an opportunity to equalise when he was put through, but he could only shoot straight at Village goalkeeper Detre Bell under pressure from his marker.

Although Village dominated play, they took only a one-goal lead into the second half and almost extended that advantage two minutes after the restart, when Ming put London Steede through with a weighted pass, but he shot into the side-netting, bringing false celebrations from the sparse Rams fans.

At the other end, Wolves thought they had found an equaliser when Marcus Ming’s perfectly floated corner was met with a firm header by Devon Bothelo, but Bell had positioned himself well to cling on to the effort.

Wolves were the authors of their own downfall and gifted the Rams their second goal when Ming needlessly handled a high cross in his own box, giving Trinidadian referee Cecile Hinds the easy task of pointing to the spot.

Bean placed his firm drive beyond the diving Minors, and the in-form striker — who missed Bermuda’s recent games in the Concacaf Nations League for personal reasons — closed out his team’s scoring a minute later with a clinical finish after holding off his marker from a long kick forward to chip over Minors.

Bell again thwarted Iris when smothering his firm strike from just outside the box as Wolves searched for a way back into the game, but they finished the game with ten men when Samario Valasse-Paul pushed the referee’s hand away while being spoken to, receiving a straight red card for his conduct.

However, Wolves never gave up, and they scored a late consolation goal when a cheeky back-heel from Jarred Douglas rooted the Village defence to allow substitute Antinori Butterfield to run through and side-foot past a stranded Bell in added time.

SCORERS

North Village: Ming 2, Bean 67 pen, 68

Wolves: Butterfield 90+5

TEAMS

North Village (4-2-3-1): D Bell 7 — Z Jennings 5 (sub: I Simmons, 77min), R Sampson 6, T Harris 6, K Knights 6 — K Harrison 6, S Spence 6 (sub: J Hayward 58, 5)— A Dill 5, T Ming 7, L Steede 6 — J Bean 8. Substitutes not used: L Evans. Booked: Dill, Sampson, Jennings.

Wolves (4-2-3-1): G Minors 6 — D Bothelo 6 (sub: K Smith, 58 5), J Martin 5, A Brangman 5, L Paynter 6 — S Valasse-Paul 5, K Browne 6 (sub: A Butterfield, 83) — K Brangman 6 (sub: J Steede, 70 5), M Iris 7, M Ming 6 (sub: J Douglas, 58 6) — K Sharrieff-Hayward 6. Substitutes not used: C Smith, S Wild. Booked: Iris. Sent off: Valasse-Paul.

Referee: C Hinds (Trinidad & Tobago).