PHC still haunted by past failures
PHC coach Kyle Lightbourne is hoping his side can exorcise their St David’s demons at Lords tomorrow.Lightbourne’s side have struggled in recent times in the East End, and can ill-afford to do so again in a game that could have reprecussions at both ends of the table.While defeat would drag St David’s back into the thick of a relegation battle, PHC need to win to keep in touch with table-toppers North Village.“St. David’s have always been a difficult team to beat for PHC at St. David’s for one reason or the other but with North Village drawing last week it gives us a chance to keep the pressure on them with a win and they have a tough game this weekend against Cougars,” said Lightbourne.“Their opponents have been the best team in the second half of the season thus far so that shouldn’t be a walk in the park for them either so it will be a tough game and we will be looking to keep the pressure on.”Village grabbed a psychological advantage over PHC with their Friendship semi-final win on Thursday night, and while tired legs could be a factor as the season wears on, Lightbourne (above) won’t be looking to Village to do his team any favours.“Tired legs don’t come into play if you’re winning, only when you are losing so if you are winning and scoring goals the factor of playing another game in such a short period of time really has no bearing.“It is a mind thing basically and that is how the game goes, but we won’t be looking to them to have tired legs, we will go out and do our job and get our result.“You have to approach each game with the same attitude and we will look to bounce back from our defeat on Thursday night.“We didn’t play well, we gave our all although we came out on the losing end and we will go into our game knowing we still have a chance of winning the league and if we can go the rest of the season undefeated then we will be pretty close to the top.”Scoring goals, or rather not scoring goals, has been PHC’s main weakness over the past two seasons, something they will need to remedy if they are to keep within touching distance of the leaders.And with a run in that includes games against both Village and Dany Town, Lightbourne admitted that there was all to play for as the season hits the finale.“We have some tough games coming up ourselves, and on paper this is maybe one of our easier games (tomorrow), but you don’t win games on paper and we have to approach the game in the right manner and take our opportunities when they come.“Our achilles heel is scoring goals and we have lacked that in the past few season so we have struggled.“In our game against Village we only had two chances and took one so we need to be efficient in front of goal.“It is hard being on top and maintain momentum and we have done our fair share of slipping up, the St. George’s game for example.“If we continue to win it will be between ourselves, Village, and Dandy Town, because we have to play both of them so it is importnat times at the moment.“If Village beat us then I would think they would have the upper hand, but it will be close and there are so many scenarios that can happen, and as Shaun (Goater) said last week the team that remains calm until the end will come out on top.”Elsewhere in Premier Division action tomorrow, Village travel to Devonshire Rec. to tackle Devonshire Cougars as they look to keep their place atop the standings, while Somerset Eagles welcome third place Dandy Town to White Hill Field.Boulevard lock horns with St. George’s at BAA Field, and Police Field will be the venue for Devonshire Colts and Southampton Rangers.