X-Roads Warriors 1 Devonshire Colts 2

Devonshire Colts produced an impressive defensive display on the road to secure victory over X-Roads at Garrison Field today.

The visitors nearly took the lead inside ten minutes when Dezion Davis cut back from the right for captain Razhir Smith-Jones, who saw his effort blocked by a defender before Jibri Salaam fired the rebound over the bar.

After dodging that bullet, Colts took the initiative and managed to win the ball high up the pitch in dangerous areas, but could not capitalise on their field position owing to a lack of composure.

Colts did, however, manage to open the scoring in the 25th minute when a corner was cleared to the edge of the box for Davis, who cushioned a pass for Salaam, who arrowed a thunderous effort off the inside of the bar and past the goalkeeper.

The home side equalised four minutes later through a stroke of luck.

Zuhri Burgess slipped on a loose ball and stayed down because of injury, and Donavan Thompson pounced on the loose ball and trotted into the penalty area before firing high past the Colts goalkeeper.

That parity did not last for too long as Colts took the lead two minutes before half-time when Brandon O’Connor slipped in Smith-Jones, who fired low and hard to send his team back in front.

The second half saw Colts starting brightly, knocking the ball around confidently to escape pressure in midfield, much to the frustration of the X-Roads players, who lost their discipline on several occasions with a number of late challenges.

The rest of the second half was largely defined by scrappy and physical play but Colt did manage to fashion a chance in the 65th minute, when Jones opened up space for himself and fired a low effort towards the X-Roads goalkeeper, who fumbled the initial save but held on at the second attempt.

The game ended with quite a few changes and the best two chances of the second half, one for each team.

Colts should have doubled their advantage when Aljame Zuill slipped a ball through for Chemarl Henry, who nipped past two defenders before firing straight at the goalkeeper.

Warriors could have equalised in the third minute of stoppage time, when Thompson controlled a high ball well on his chest, and then fired a pass to his winger, whose shot was tipped over by the Colts goalkeeper.

Colts head coach Ray Jones, while happy with the result and in particular, his team strong defending, admitted that there was still a lot of work to be done.

“It wasn’t a very good performance,” he aid. “We defended the lead really well. X-Roads didn’t really create anything of note.”

∎ The team boxes are not available owing to the refusal of security guards at Garrison Field to allow The Royal Gazette access to the match commissioners