North Village 0 St George’s 1St George’s coach Richard Todd hailed to his side’s determination and work ethic as the visitors added to Noth Village’s misery, snatching all three points from the champions at Bernard Park yesterday.Jarreau Hayward’s header in the 18th minute sealed the win, and they can also thank goalkeeper Zane Hendrickson for a few fine saves to keep the clean sheet in what was make-up Premier game and the only one played on the weekend.Yesterday’s loss was the champions third on the trot after defeats to Dandy Town and Somerset Trojans.Now level on games with their rest of the title contenders, they remain five points back of leaders PHC and are in the middle of their worst run of games in recent years.“It was a good reward for us today, we came here committed to working hard and as a team our intensity level was high from the start, we never let them get settled,” said Todd.“The goal was typical of our hard work, their defender was shielding a ball and Clay Darrell kept hounding him and stripped him of the ball and that allowed us to put a ball in the box and get the goal.“I’m pleased for the players because it is easy to lose your confidence when the results aren’t going your way and hopefully a result like this can kick start the season. It happened last year against Devonshire Cougars so it’s a good sign.“Hopefully this will have a positive effect on us.“It was all hands to the pump late on, we played deep late on, deeper than I would have liked and we have talked about grinding out results in these sorts of matches and finally one has gone our way.”The match could have had a different result if Rams midfielder Vernon Tankard had scored in the 10th minute with his effort from close range but instead it crashed against the crossbar.The game would see its only goal eight minutes later when defender Devrae Tankard was hustled off the ball as he tried to shield it out of play from Darrell.Tankard was stripped in the corner with Darrell supplying the cross and it was left for Hayward to plant his header into ‘keeper Jason Williams’ net to put Colts ahead.It was a scrappy midfield affair after the opener and it wasn’t until the 48th minute that the action would pick up again with St George’s skipper David Signor clearing the ball off the goal-line from a Keishen Bean shot from six yards.Tyrell Burgess then tried his luck from 25 yards but his effort smashed the inside of Hendrickson’s far post and across the face of goal before a defender came on the scene to clear the ball.Hendrickson had a momentary lapse of concentration in the 74th minute when he didn’t collect a cross cleanly allowing the ball to roll across the goal.Luckily for him, however, the ball was called out of bounds before it was put in the net with the hosts getting a corner out of the bizarre incident.As they piled on pressure to get the all-important equaliser, they found themselves vulnerable at the back with striker Angelo Cannonier carving out a chance to settle matters.The lanky forward, however, pushed his shot wide of the mark.One last chance for Village saw Tankard’s rasping drive from 30 yards fantastically saved by Hendrickson to keep his side ahead.St George’s are now five points clear of the relegation zone on 10 points, level with Southampton Rangers and Robin Hood.Skipper Signor added: “This is a good result for us, it shows that hard work does pay off. I don’t think many expected this result but our motto is hard work pays off and today it did.”North Village: J Williams, K Dill, T Burgess, D Tankard, L Alexander, S DeGraff, K Bean(P Smith,77), R Bean, J Lee(J Smith-Deshields,73), V Tankard, C Boyce(L Dill,45)Subs not used: J Boyles, K Dill, D GrantSt George’s: Z Hendrickson, J Simmons, C Durham, D Signor, A Cannonier(S Pitcher,77), C Darrell(A Douglas,70), J Hayward, J Dickinson, J Darrell(J Hayward,58), G Wade, JBassettSubs not used:E Signor, K Smith, A Dill, J CarlingtonGoal: J Hayward,18Referee: M WyerMan of the Match: Z Hendrickson