The stage has been set and the gauntlet thrown down.

Unfancied clubs they may be, but Devonshire Cougars and Wolves defied the odds on Tuesday night to move within 90 minutes of a place in the Dudley Eve Trophy final — a first for either club.

And central to their ambitions of mass delirium come New Year’s Day are players who were not in the frame a fortnight ago.

Enter Galvin Butterfield and John Barry Nusum, or David and Goliath, if you will.

The latter has been omnipresent in the public consciousness in recent weeks because of his accomplishments with Furman College on the NCAA circuit while Butterfield, although he has been a stalwart for Cougars in recent years, is comparatively unknown.

What they have in common, though, is honest endeavour, and their head-to-head match-up on Sunday at St. John’s Field represents one of the significant talking points.

Nusum scored twice in Wolves’ 4-1 dismantling of PHC before Dennis Brown removed him.

The All-American said that he enjoyed his first match back in Bermuda but was looking to improve.

“I like coming back and playing with (Wolves),” he said. “My touch was off the whole game. The ground was a lot bumpier than what I have become used to overseas. I have to improve definitely because I know the grounds are not going to change.”

Butterfield has only recently returned to the Cougars line-up after a series of injuries that he said, in a mode of resignation, are restricted to his groin, hamstring, back and knee!

But he wears the label of wounded warrior well and, if Cougars can find another one or two of his ilk to shore up an often shaky defence, they would be sure bets to challenge for all remaining honours.

First things first, though, and Butterfield is bracing himself to bring down Goliath. “I don’t fret no player,” he said, in reference to Nusum. “You could bring (Shaun) Goater back, it doesn’t make no difference.”

Butterfield, whose indefatigable spirit was exemplified by a 75-yard run, undisciplined though it seemed at the outset, to set up their equaliser, says he is driven by an intense pride.

“I’m just playing from my heart,” he added, “and I want to make my coaches proud. This is an extra bonus for us. We’re looking to pick up another trophy and snap that Martonmere Cup jinx where people say that once you win that, it’s hard to win anything else.”

Butterfield might be right, but only in the sense that it should be hard to win a title at any time. Both coaches concur and, as such, refuse to get carried away with their teams’ performances.

Dennis Brown, the Wolves coach, believes that his team had one of their better games of the season, despite being reduced to 10 players when Khari Sharrieff was sent off.

“I thought we showed a lot of character when we went one down,” he said. “But as I told the players, this was just the first hurdle. If we want to be the champions of this competition we have three other hurdles to conquer. So this is just the first step.”

Brown acknowledged the input of Nusum, his star attraction who left the field to an ovation from the Wolves supporters. “He gave us a tremendous lift, psychologically and physically on the pitch,” Brown said. “The players really rallied around him. The future is ahead for him as a professional player and we just have to take advantage now while we have him.”

While the dismissal of Sharrieff, for kicking out at the PHC goalkeeper, was disappointing, Wolves have enough quality to make a fist of this competition. And they will get stronger with return of midfield player Chae Simmons, after he sits out the last of a four-game suspension on Sunday, and defender Jamal Simmons, who was sent off in the Friendship Trophy defeat to Devonshire Colts last week.

Cougars, with their defence already minus the injured Shawn Smith, will have to cope against Wolves without left-sided defender Maxwell Dill who will miss a match after his caution for dissent on Tuesday brought his bookings log to three.

Nevertheless, coach Albert Smith is more concerned about his team’s inability to focus fully on the task of putting Colts away after they had built a three-goal lead at half-time with a one-man advantage.

“I think we lost shape a little bit and complacency set in also,” he said. “I told them at half-time that they have to stay focused for 90 minutes and I didn’t think we did. It got a little scrappy but we had a few chances that we should have capitalised on. Overall, I think it was a good performance.”Continued on Page 19Cougars were behind after only two minutes but then proceeded to pick apart a shoddy Colts defence with Raymond Beach providing the exclamation point with a hat-trick within a half-hour. The former Dandy Town youth team player perhaps saved his best for the fourth goal when he danced by Michael Bean before setting up Heys Wolffe.

That combination, plus the witty input of Mark Smith and the rising stature of Kwame Steede and Kori Goddard make Cougars a dangerous side to relax against — even for the few minutes that Colts did so.

“They showed good character and the will to win after going behind and I praised them for that,” Smith added. “We should be more comfortable playing against (Wolves), but we still have a lot of things to sort out.”