Devonshire Colts 1 North Village 2

North Village reached their first final since 2017 with a victory over Devonshire Colts in the FA Cup semi-finals at Goose Gosling Field on Saturday night.

Colts dominated the early moments of the game, knocking the ball around nicely and stretching the Village defence across the pitch.

Whenever Village won the ball, they pressed high to win it back in good positions.

Goalkeeper Tahj Bell had to make a couple of excellent saves early on, as Colts, who are pushing for the First Division title, started to open up Village’s defence.

They finally got their rewards when Rahzir Smith-Jones latched on to a cross by Chemari Henry and struck immediately past Bell to open the scoring less than five minutes in. However, Village responded in a positive way. The goal seemed to wake the Premier Division champions up. They started to pick up their passing tempo and began winning more midfield challenges.

Goalkeeper Jaden Mills-Furbert was getting worked more, as Village captain Keishen Bean and playmaker Jaizel Smith-DeShields started to take over the attacking areas.

Smith-DeShields was the catalyst to get the ten-times FA champions back into the game, when he dribbled past one defender and was taken down by another.

Referee Tashun Simons pointed to the spot, and Bean calmly sent Mills-Furbert the wrong way to level the scores just three minutes after going behind.

Village slightly edged the midfield battle, with Pierre Smith and Smith-DeShields trying to feed chief marksman Bean. The second half began similar to the end of the first, as Village side started to show their quality.

Colts, however, were not going to go away lightly, despite conceding the equaliser so soon after they went ahead.

They utilised the speed on the flanks, as Freeman Lema and Jahkeylo Burgess tried to use the width to stretch Village and create a decent chance for the underdogs to pull the upset.

Village continued to knock around nicely, but when Colts had the ball, they did the same. The game was played to a very high standard on the night.

However, Village ultimately had the last laugh.

Smith-DeShields cut inside and hit a hard shot past Mills-Furbert at the far post to give Village a chance to win their second trophy of the season.

SCORERS

Colts Smith-Jones 5

Village Bean 11, Smith-DeShields 67

TEAMS

Devonshire Colts (4-4-2): J Mills-Furbert — F Lema, C Trott, T Foote, S Burgess (sub: N Raynor, 82) — C Henry, J Salaam, R Smith-Jones, J Burgess — S Mitchell, D Richardson.

North Village (4-2-3-1): T Bell — J Daniels, K Knights, T Fray, A Darrell — J Briers, D Daniels (sub: J Simons: 59min) — T Tucker, K Bean, P Smith (sub: R Simons 68) — J Smith-DeShields (sub: Q Lema 90).

Referee: T Simons.