Boulevard 0 North Village 3

The North Village dispensed with a hard-working Boulevard thanks to a brace by Che’Kai Zuill at Goose Gosling Field on Sunday.

Village enjoyed a dominant display over a Boulevard outfit that found the going tough, yet again, as they went in search of their first point on the season.

Che’Kai Zuill opened the scoring in the eighth minute when he received a defence-splitting pass, which he controlled and with his back to the goal, performed an overhead kick that eluded the home side’s goalkeeper Jahni Shakir as he advanced off his line.

Boulevard were plagued by a succession of errant passes and mental lapses during crucial periods of the game.

Village were gifted a second goal after a perfect pass from Justin Bell found Keishen Bean unmarked to easily nod home in the 40th minute.

Instead of Boulevard blazing out of the gate to begin in the second half, it was Village and Zuill, whose darting runs into the penalty area allowed him space to intercept a rebounded shot to tap home in the 49th minute.

Village came agonisingly close to scoring numerous times in the dying stages of the game with substitute Rushaine Murphy guilty of putting two glorious opportunities just wide.

Boulevard got one clear opportunity to score, but Jaleel Crockwell’s tame effort was smothered by Village goalkeeper Tahj Bell.

Village’s star man Zuill said, “I’m feeling confident in my game and my team-mates are guiding and encouraging me, which is making me comfortable in my game.

“My goal this year is to score a minimum ten goals and we have the team that can help me accomplish this. Of course, we are not content and want to get back to playing like the Rams teams of old by becoming trophy contenders this season.”

Ian Coke, the Boulevard coach, was philosophical in his assessment of his team’s lack of productivity this season.

“This has been a tough season for us so far, no doubt,” he said. “But we are going to continue fighting. Our struggles this year is in finding consistency in linking up with our forwards in the last third of the field.

“Our defence is doing well to win balls for us in moving the ball forward, but we just need to be more efficient up front. Our immediate objective is to get a few points going into the halfway point of the season, but ultimately our goal is to avoid relegation.”

SCORERS

North Village: Zuill 8 49, Bean 40

TEAMS

Boulevard (4-5-1): J Shakir — I Coke, N Smith, A Smith, T Walker (sub: Ta Swan, 74) — K McQueen (sub: J Williams, 46), A Famous, J Crockwell, T Stovell — Z Stovell, N Augustus (sub: T Butterfield, 62). Substitutes not used: K Easton, D Taylor, Y Darrell, Ti Swan. Booked: A Smith, N Smith.

North Village (4-4-2): T Bell — A Darrell, K Knights, Z Robinson, D Tankard — J Briers, J Daniels (sub: D Daniels, 71min), T Tucker, C Zuill (sub: W Shakir, 76) — K Bean, J Bell (sub: R Murphy, 80). Substitutes not used: D Dillas, Z Hendrickson, T Bean. Booked: Bell.

Referee: A Augustus.