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QRC went down to the visitors by a narrow 1-0 margin.

According to Old Boy and former 1st XI footballer Stephen George:

QRC didn’t play with any type of urgency in the first half, with no hustle at all.  Some of the players were not attacking the ball.  The one Malick goal came off of a mistake in the back.  The defender didn’t head the ball with any power, as if the ball just hit him and then fell for the Malick forward, who took one push away from the defender and hit a low shot near post. The keeper dove but couldn’t reach the ball.

The second half was a different story and we came out with a bit more purpose, however we never really got any good looks at the goal.  We had a scrap in front of the goal in the 90th minute but the ball ended up over the touch line.

It was a tough loss, the guys fought but it was not our day.  Lets hope that this was a wake up call and that they realize that we need to work hard for 90 mins every game.

Mucurapo however overturned their first round loss to St. Mary’s with a 2-0 victory at home.  Fatima also secured full points with a 3-1 win away to Trinity.

The results consolidate Mucurapo’s position at the top of the standings on 20 points, and Fatima leapfrogs QRC to retake second position on 15.  QRC remain third on 13 points but with one fewer game played than both Mucurapo teams, and can ill afford to drop any more points on the run to the end of league play.  QRC’s gift to Malick though lifts them out of cellar position and immediate relagation threat.

Current standings are as follows.

Following a Mucurapo win on Saturday versus Malick, QRC will be looking to take full points in their own match up with Malick in order to keep up with the zone leaders.  The Royalians will also be hoping that St. Mary’s pull a repeat of their first round win over Mucurapo on the same match day.

While QRC enjoyed their turn at the bye on Saturday, Mucurapo was drubbing Malick by a 4-0 margin to take their point total to 17 and extend their lead.  St. Anthony’s meeting with Trinity was postponed as a result of waterlogged conditions at the Moka ground.

Fatima and CIC played to a 2-2 draw, both taking a point and going up to 12 behind QRC’s 13.  A brace by CIC’s Veer Lakhan-Joseph takes him to eight strikes and one ahead of QRC’s Jerrel Britto, tied in second on seven goals with three other players – Mucurapo’s Kevin Molino, San Juan’s Akel James and Fatima’s Chad De Freitas who also scored two for his team on Saturday.

Desired results would take QRC to 16 points off a win.  The Hayes Street unit would still one point behind Mucurapo should they then drop all their points against St. Mary’s.  St. Mary’s fortunes – whether they remain fourth or surge past Fatima into third – would depend on a favourable result in the Fatima-Trinity matchup at Moka.

The race to the league title and a Big Five spot rounds out with QRC facing St. Mary’s and Trinity at home, and then St. Anthony’s and Fatima away.    Mucurapo rounds out their run with matches at Trinity, St. Anthony’s and their second-round matchup versus neighbours Fatima.

ERRATA:Kevin Molino was incorrectly identified as a Malick Senior Comprehensive player. He plays for Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive.

The Royalians visited Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive at Fatima Ground for an anticipated top of the table clash.  When QRC faced Mucurapo in the first game of Round One play at home, the St. Clair unit failed to hold onto a two-nil halftime lead, but managed to secure a draw to snag their first point.  Undefeated in six games, QRC sat only one point behind zone leaders Mucurapo going into this round of play.

The game promised to be a clash of playing styles.  According to stats collated at SchoolSoccerNet.com, high-flying Mucurapo is the highest scoring team in the zone with 23 to date and three players in the running for league top scorer accolades – Kevin Molino on seven, Mutar Taylor on six and Johan Peltier on five.  QRC on the other hand has conceded fewest goals in the zone – six with all other teams showing at least 11 against – and has managed to eke out at least a draw in all of its matches to date.

It should come as little surprise then that the match played to a nil-nil stalemate, even though Molino did eventually notch an item which was called back offside.

Reports indicate that Mucurapo applied solid pressure throughout with QRC occassionally managing to counter and look dangerous.  Radio reporting suggests that QRC had the better looking chances at goal in the first half although Mucurapo had greater possession.

Second half was all Mucurapo though, and Molino is said to have made a journeyman error in not recognising himself that he was in an offside position as he ran onto and pushed the ball past QRC’s keeper Joseph.

The result leaves Mucurapo on top of the standings with 14 points.

As a result of an unlikely one-all draw between Malick and a Fatima side that has seen declining fortunes of late, QRC remains second in the table on 13.  With the come-from-behind draw to the table proppers, Fatima secure a point to hold onto third on 11.

A resurgent St. Mary’s College playing away managed to hold off St. Anthony’s by a 2-1 margin to take their point tally to 11, but sit behind Fatima on goal difference.

The table rounds out with St. Anthony’s on nine, Trinity on the day’s bye on three and Malick still in the cellar position on two.

QRC enjoys the bye on Saturday 27th September, where first placed Mucurapo will face Malick at Fatima Ground, Trinity tackles St. Anthony’s at Moka, and CIC playing at home will be looking to pull ahead of Fatima and overturn a first round loss when they face the Mucurapo-based college.

The Royalians next host Malick Senior Comprehensive on Tuesday 30th September.  Kick-off time is 3:45PM.

QRC’s Rashaad Griffith and Jerrel Britto both notched at home to defeat Mucurapo-based rivals Fatima College by two goals to one.   With the win, QRC remains the only undefeated team in the zone and they leapfrog Fatima to take second position in the zone table on the last day of Round One play.

In other matches, sixth-placed Trinity opened the scoring and were up by two over St. Mary’s College in a match that eventually ended three-all, and St. Anthony’s playing at home scraped a 1-0 victory over Malick Senior Comprehensive .  Mucurapo enjoyed the day’s bye.

The results leave Mucurapo on the top of the zone table with 13 points, and QRC now sits second on 12 with the win over Fatima.  Fatima drop to third on 10 and St. Anthony’s climb to fourth position on nine points.  The table rounds out with St. Mary’s on eight, Trinity on three and Malick on points.

Round Two play starts on Thursday 25th September and QRC journeys to Fatima Ground for a top of the table clash with Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive.  The match stands to determine which of the two teams sit atop the standings as the round progresses, and whether QRC marksman Jerrel Britto will pull ahead of Mucurapo captain Kevin Molino as the league’s top scorer.  Both players lead all scorers across the five zones with seven strikes a piece.

The Royalians will have been looking for full points in this match against the visitors from Westmoorings, and looked up to the task early.  In very wet conditions, the St. Clair unit showed again that they could hold their own with composure and poise against run and gun sides.

It was QRC who would strike first through prolific forward Jerrel Britto in the fifth minute.  A ball brought up the left by midfielder Theon James and knocked to QRC striker Jeron Jones  on the run.  Jones passed to Britto who knock the one-two back to Jones in the box.  Leaning on his defender with his back to the goal, Jones quickly knocked back to his strike partner who hit one time past the St. Anthony’s keeper, against the upright and into the far corner.

Britto would notch his second in the 30th minutes, rising to hit a right-footed volley off a right side corner to give the keeper no chance.

The score though belied how well both teams matched each other though. Both teams showed flashes of brilliance, and both could have succumbed to pressure from either side.  St. Anthony’s though came out firing in the second half and opened their account.  Mere moments after the resumption, St. Anthony’s came out fast and hard, and scored with QRC backpedalling.

The goal seemed to give the Tigers a needed boost, and QRC would spend more time in this half defending and lauching attacks on the counter to seek to open their advantage.

The opponents’ inevitable equalizer came off a pass that many Royalian supporters thought to be offside.  The ball was threaded to a St. Anthony’s striker who would run in and slot home.

In the final seconds, QRC ended the game with two more excellent opportunities to retake the lead, but saw both efforts go awry.

The score was fitting an evenly contested match, but QRC will rue several chances to put St. Anthony’s away and secure full points.

In other results on the day, Mucurapo would beat Fatima by four goals to three, and table proppers Trinity and Malick would play to a nil-nil result.

The results cause no movement on the table other than for Mucurapo to pulls away from Fatima to take sole possession of first position with 13 points.  Fatima remain second on 10.  QRC’s draw to St. Anthony’s leaves the Royalians in third on nine points.  CIC on a bye hold fourth position with seven points.  St. Anthony’s ups their tally to six and hold the fifth position, and Trinity and Malick round out the table with two and one points respectively.

Third-placed QRC will be looking for the full three points against fifth-placed St. Anthony’s tomorrow, and hoping that Mucurapo and Fatima play to a draw in order to move closer to pole position in the zone table.  Such a result would see all three teams on eleven points and separated only by goal difference.

Only Mucurapo has scored more goals than the Westmoorings outfit this league season, their players notching 13 in four games – two against CIC, seven against Trinity, three against Fatima and just one against Mucurapo.  But they have also proven to be fairly porous in the back, permitting 10 in their one win, two draws and one loss so far.

QRC’s record is far more conservative with seven goals for and three against in their unbeaten run to date.  The Royalians have two wins and two draws to their credit, including last Wednesday’s unfortunate stalemate at Moka.  It is also to be noted that QRC has permitted the fewest goals in the zone thus far, something that will not be lost on St. Anthony’s.

The match kicks off at 3:45PM tomorrow Saturday at QRC Grounds, and will be LiveCast at http://qrc.edu/livecast.html.

All reports indicate that QRC and Trinity battled to something of a stalemate yesterday afternoon, the game ending nil-nil.

Torrential rain and the resulting waterlogged field made play all but impossible.  While QRC spent the majority of the game in Trinity’s final third, there was little that could be done to create and convert scoring opportunities.  In the end, both teams walked away from the encounter with a point.

In the afternoon’s other two matches, Mucurapo handed St. Anthony’s their first defeat of the season by a 3-1 margin at Fatima Ground, and St. Mary’s edged Malick 1-0 at CIC Grounds.

Wednesday’s results nudge Mucurapo into pole position on the group table ahead of Fatima by on goal difference alone.  Both teams are on 10 points.  QRC remains third with eight points.  The table rounds out with CIC on seven, last year’s champion St. Anthony’s on five, Trinity on one, and Malick holding cellar position with no points after four games.

On Saturday 20th September, QRC hosts St. Anthony’s, Trinity host Malick, and Mucurapo and Fatima square off in a top of the table clash.  All match times are 3:45PM.