Dandy Town coach Kyle Lightbourne has described tonight’s Friendship Trophy quarter-final encounter against St George’s Colts at Goose Gosling Field as a problematic assignment.

Five days after the two teams met in a league encounter at the same venue, where Town triumphed 5-1, they clash again, this time with a spot in the Friendship semi-finals at stake.

“It’s a tricky fixture against St George’s because they’re a good team,” Lightbourne told The Royal Gazette.

“I think we caught them on their bad day so we can’t take them lightly. My team is starting to gel, now we need to keep the foot down and keep our standards high. Dandy Town is a club that’s no stranger to winning. We’re in it to win it so we have to try our best to get to the final and win this trophy.”

Sunday’s success over the FA Cup holders saw the Hornets leapfrog champions PHC into second position, two points behind North Village with a game in hand. The former Bermuda coach attributed his side’s resurgence to stability and putting in the yards at training.

“The key for me is that we’ve had time on the training pitch,” he said. “Our team has been a little settled over the last four or five games where we’ve been able to pick pretty much the same team, guys are finding their fitness and all of that has made a huge difference.

“Defensively we’ve been solid, we have only conceded two goals in our last three matches. We’ve been controlling the matches and it’s always a good sign if you’re doing that.”

Town, winners of the Friendship on four previous occasions – with their last triumph coming in the 2018-19 season – are looking to remain active during the festive season break.

With players such as goalkeeper Jaiden Manders back from school overseas to challenge Toran Place, Town’s hero in the penalty shoot-out triumph over Devonshire Cougars, Lightbourne has more options to choose from.

“It’s important for us to stay in the competition for as long as possible. Ideally, we would like to make it to the final,” the Town coach said.

“We have players coming back from school overseas and they are helping with numbers at training. It would be nice to give these players an opportunity during this period when they’re on island.

“Right now things are looking up for us, but in football there’s always a banana peel around the corner. We just need to come to play in every match that comes our way and put in our best performance.”

With the Bermuda Football Association said to be banking on the festive season break to schedule Town’s match against Cougars, being knocked out of the Friendship might prove to be a blessing in disguise for Lightbourne’s team.

A win over Cougars will send Town to the top of the standings and present them with a great opportunity to launch a bid for a league title they last won during the 2021-22 season.

“We still have one match to play in the first half of the season,” Lightbourne added. “If we get knocked out of the Friendship, I’m sure they’ll arrange this fixture before the second half of the season starts.

“If we do well in that game, we close the gap or overtake North Village. We want to be ready for the second half of the season and kick on. We dropped a couple of points in the eight matches we’ve played so far. We weren’t happy with games that we were leading and later drew.”