Devonshire Colts 1 St David’s Warriors 0

Five-times FA Cup winners Devonshire Colts are hoping to turn back time to their glory days as they defeated St David’s Warriors 1-0 in the first round action at Police field on Sunday.

Played in windy conditions, the game was decided when Chemari Henry reacted first to a partially blocked pass from Jorj Dublin’s through ball to blast into the back of the net to score the only goal of the game and send his team into the next round much to the delight of coach Ray Jones.

“This Club has Cup history,” Jones said. “We are in it to win it just like all the other teams. Our first priority is to get promoted but I also want to challenge my team to try to win the cup again from the First Division."

The Warriors were missing some key players from the team that beat the Colts in the Shield Final on New Year’s Day with players returning overseas to college, but were not afraid to take the game to their opposition.

Influenced by the strong wind, both teams tried to establish a passing game with St David’s dominating in the opening minutes and they missed the opportunity to open the scoring when Declan Laws shot straight at Colts’ goalkeeper Jaden Mills-Furbert from close range after being put through.

Colts’ best chance came on the half-hour mark when Robert Urquhart’s goalbound free-kick forced St. David’s goalkeeper Chazz Knights to dive at full length to push the ball around the post for a corner.

Both teams continued to search for the opening goal but lacked quality in the attacking third of the field to penetrate with centre-backs Dmitri Butterfield and Dublin, for St David’s and Colts respectively, marshalling their defences as the teams went into the break scoreless.

Shortly after the restart, Knights was called upon to make back-to-back saves, first from Henry then a rebound from Keino Burch to keep his team in the match. With the game heading into extra time, Knights was finally beaten when Henry pounced on to the loose ball to score.

With the clock ticking down, Vance Brown thought he had found the equaliser with a firmly driven free-kick but the Colts’ goalkeeper was equal to the task as he dived to his left to push the effort around the post to preserve the win and send his team through.

SCORER

Devonshire Colts: Henry 81

TEAMS

Devonshire Colts (4-2-3-1): J Mills-Furbert 7 — A Van Duyne 6, M Selassie 6, J Dublin 7, J Paynter 7 — D Davis 6, I Naylor 6 (sub: J Saunders, 84min) — K Burch 6, R Urquhart 6, C Henry 7 — S Blair-Paynter 5 (sub: T Eve, 62 6). Substitutes not used: J Matthews, T Burgess, D Jackson, I Greaves, A Wolffe. Booked: Van Duyne, Urquhart, Henry.

St. David’s Warriors (4-3-1-2): C Knights 7 — B Furqan, V Brown, D Butterfield, Andrew Paynter (sub: J Jervis, 73) — Aaron Paynter, M James 5 (sub: A Lugo, 46 6), C King (sub:S Ming 73) — D Laws — K Butterfield (sub: K Burton 81), T Burgess (sub: J Wales 84). Substitutes not used: D Minors, J Minors, N Russell. Booked: James, Coach Kameron Fox, Andrew Paynter, Jervis, Dmitri Butterfield.

Referee: D Jackson