North Village’s Daion Swan-DeSilva and D’Andre Wainwright have taken football’s upper echelon by storm during the season’s early going.

The pair have combined for 11 goals in all competitions, with each registering a hat-trick for Rams and have helped establish the club as senior football’s top outfit at present.

Rams have alrady secured one title, the Charity Cup, and will take on Devonshire Cougars in today’s final of the Dudley Eve Trophy, while they stand six points clear of all challengers at the top of the Premier Division.

Wainwright and Swan-DeSilva also have at least three other things in common, with both coming from families with rich sporting heritage and making infrequent appearances for Somerset Trojans last season, while they elected to enter the transfer portal and sign on with Village this summer.

An obvious difference between the pair is size, with Wainwright a veritable giant compared with the much smaller and more svelte Swan-DeSilva.

Wainwright is pegged as a scorer, based on his position as a striker for his new club but Swan-DeSilva’s five goals are something of a surprise, coming from his midfield position, yet goalscoring is in his blood being the son of former Somerset talisman Damon Swan, who scored a fair share for Trojans during his playing career.

Swan-DeSilva was also a part of the Bermuda squad that competed at the Concacaf Under-17 Championships in Guatemala earlier this year.

Village coach Kenny Thompson has seen fit to assign the 16-year-old a regular spot as an attacking midfielder, just behind Wainwright, where he has thrived in partnership with Wainwright and the likes of Jaizel Smith-DeShields, Tre Ming, Tahmi Williams and fellow youngster Adio DeShields-Tankard.

“We have a number of young players in our squad and, in the cases of Daion and Adio, two players who have made significant impacts during this early-season period,” Thompson said.

“There is still much to be discovered about the game for them and the other young players, but they’re all working hard.”

Swan-DeSilva is pleased with the start he has made to the year, even as he hopes to get better as time progresses.

“There is room for improvement,” Swan-DeSilva said.

“There are many things that could have been better, but right now being this is the start of the season, things are going better than I would have expected.

“I didn’t think I would have this many goals at this stage, as I had set a target of ten goals for the season.”

With just a quarter of the season complete, Swan-DeSilva may want to revise his expectations with Village favoured to play more games than most clubs in various competitions.

As for the productive tandem he has developed with Wainwright, Swan-DeSilva expressed how he is simply following orders and playing his role to the best of his ability while embracing the team concept.

“I believe our relationship has been what the coach has asked for,” he added. “There are players around us who are at a high level, who work with us and have allowed us to build great momentum and help us to score the goals.”

For his part, Wainwright is truly experiencing a new lease on his football life at the Pembroke club.

Seemingly fully recovered from a troublesome knee injury that hindered his previous stay at Somerset Trojans, the 23-year-old is noticeably fitter and more agile and has morphed into one of the top flight’s most lethal attackers.

Not only has Wainwright’s strength and athleticism proved a bane for defences, but his prowess with set-pieces has also proved highly beneficial to his new club.

“My overall development has been getting better,” explained Wainwright of his emergence as viable attacking force.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m at my best yet or my fittest, but overall I’m getting better. These guys believe in me, so it’s really helped my confidence.”

The contrast between this season and last is stark for Wainwright, who has appeared in every match for Village, including the Charity Cup in which he scored in the victory over PHC. While he was grateful for the opportunity to become a part of Somerset Trojans’ programme, he believes he is a much better fit at Village, where he believes his style of play blends more effectively within the team concept.

“Up Somerset it was more individualistic and the reliance was on key players,” said Wainwright, who has enjoyed stints in England with non-League clubs Redcar and Billingham Synthonia.

“Here everyone’s a key player and everyone looks to pick up each other, which helps with my confidence.

“Also, here I’m not called on to do as much as I was up the road. I’m basically just called on to score goals and when I don’t shoot that’s when I get told off. I’m not asked to create so much, but more so to just get into the correct position to score goals.”

Coach Thompson expressed pleasure with the output of Wainwright, who has brought an added dimension to the club.

“D’Andre is important to us and we’re still trying to work with him because I know that he’s even better than he’s shown.

“To have that physicality is really important as, always for us, is the technical playand his game awareness,” ” said Thompson, known for his passion for player development.

“We want a player that has all of the components, matters of technique and game awareness.

“He’s gained in his confidence around goal and is improving in his participation in the build-ups, but we’re happy to have him here and I believe he’s enjoying life here at North Village so far, and we expect bigger and better things.”

Wainwright is the grandson of former Bermuda goalkeeper and St George’s Cup Match star Dennis Wainwright. However, while his grandfather does everything to encourage, the striker’s father, Dennis Jr, is quite demanding of his offspring when it comes to his play.

“I don’t feel much pressure from my grandpa, who does everything to take pressure off of me, but my dad is the one who puts pressure on me,” Wainwright said with a chuckle.

“So it’s a balance and they both really support me, but one’s just always on me, while the other encourages me to keep going.”