Nigel Si­mon

Po­lice FC sec­ond-year coach Richard Hood will hope to do what no oth­er team has man­aged to achieved in the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League thus far this 2013/2014 sea­son, when his team faces run-away lead­ers Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion to­day from 6 pm. That is se­cure a win.

The match be­tween W Con­nec­tion, win­ners of six of its eight match­es for 20 points, and Po­lice, one of three clubs in sec­ond spot with 13 points takes place at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

Two hours lat­er at the same, Cale­do­nia AIA, and Cen­tral FC, both with 12 points meet and while this match-up seems much more in­ter­est­ing, its the con­fi­dence of Hood and his high fly­ing Po­lice squad which has put his team in the spot­light.

Speak­ing ahead of the bat­tle, sec­ond year Po­lice coach, Hood be­lieves his team has the qual­i­ty to end the un­beat­en run of W Con­nec­tion. "We have met W Con­nec­tion twice, and on both oc­ca­sions they de­feat­ed us 1-0, but we are hop­ing to beat them this time around. That's our in­tent and if our play­ers play with­in the plans that we have de­signed for them, we can beat W Con­nec­tion."

The law­men en­ter tonight's match in an un-fa­mil­iar po­si­tion of sec­ond on the league ta­ble so deep in­to the sea­son and buoyed by their back-to-back wins over St Ann's Rangers 2-0 and North East Stars, will be hope­ful of aveng­ing a 1-0 first round loss to the Savonet­ta Boys and a sim­i­lar 1-0 loss in the round-of-16 of the T&T FA Tro­phy com­pe­ti­tion.

Hood chances of get­ting a win were boost­ed by the re­turn of util­i­ty play­er Clevon Mc Fee, 25, and mid­field­er Kur­dell Braith­waite, 21, both from St Ann's Rangers, along with for­mer Cale­do­nia strik­er LJ Mitchell, 24 dur­ing the Jan­u­ary trans­fer win­dow.

On the oth­er-hand, W Con­nec­tion coach, Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er while ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in his team's abil­i­ty to main­tain its un­beat­en run not­ed his team has to be more ef­fec­tive."

The St Lu­cian-born Charles-Fevri­er re­flect­ing on his team's last two match­es, draws against Cale­do­nia (0-0) and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons De­fence Force (1-1) said they were match­es they should have won.

"Of­fen­sive­ly we were found want­i­ng in terms of putting away our goal scor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties. It has plagued us. It's al­so a prob­lem of oth­er teams as well, but we are aware of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and we have the same ob­jec­tive as oth­er teams in want­i­ng to be cham­pi­ons.

With re­gards to op­po­nents Po­lice he said, "We have a good record against them over the years but foot­ball is on the day and this sea­son they have a very young team and have been play­ing well. So we have to be mind­ful of that."

Cale­do­nia and Cen­tral FC will al­so be des­per­ate to pick up full points in their show­down as they look to close the gap on four-time league cham­pi­ons W Con­nec­tion.

When both teams met in the first round at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, the match end­ed goal­less, but Cale­do­nia will go in­to the clash in a much more con­fi­dent mood, un­beat­en in their last four match­es, in­clud­ing a 2-1 win over Pt Fortin Civic a wee ago.

Cen­tral FC has won two of its last four match­es, but was dis­ap­point­ing­ly held to a 1-1 draw by low­ly San Juan Jabloteh on Sun­day and coach Ter­ry Fen­wick, will be keen for his play­ers to get back to win­ning ways, with the hope of catch­ing run­away lead­ers W Con­nec­tion.

Ex­pect­ed to be in the Cen­tral FC Sharks line-up is new­ly ac­quired de­fend­er, 27-year-old Yohance Mar­shall who has signed from Nay Pwi Taw of the Myan­mar Na­tion­al League where he was vot­ed in­to the League's 2013 All-Star team.

The Cal­i­for­nia based Mar­shall, has made five in­ter­na­tion­al ap­pear­ances for T&T, but has spent his en­tire pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer over­seas, first in the USA when he joined US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's L.A Galaxy in 2009, then in the Far East with Chainat FC of Thai­land and then Nay Pwi Taw.

A for­mer St An­tho­ny's Col­lege stand­out and Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent, Mar­shall opt­ed to sign on with Ter­ry Fen­wick Sharks' af­ter look­ing at op­tions both home and abroad with his rep­re­sen­ta­tive Nara­da Wil­son of The Brazil Link.

To­mor­row, North East Stars (13 points) trav­el to the Ma­haica Oval to face slump­ing sev­enth placed Point Fortin Civic, which af­ter three wins to start the sea­son has tast­ed de­feat in its last five while at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar, Jabloteh bat­tles Rangers in a clash of the cel­lar-placed clubs. (3 points).

To­day's Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League match­es

To­day:

Venue: Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo

Po­lice vs W Con­nec­tion, 6pm

Cale­do­nia vs Cen­tral FC, 8pm.

To­mor­row's match­es

San Juan Jabloteh vs St Ann's Rangers, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar, 3.30 pm

Point Fortin Civic vs North East Stars, Ma­haica Oval, Pt Fortin, 3.30pm.

Cur­rent T&T Pro League stand­ings

Teams P W D L F A Pts

W Con­nec­tion 8 6 2 0 17 3 14

Po­lice 8 4 1 3 14 11 13

North East Stars 8 4 1 3 9 6 13

De­fence Force 8 4 1 3 15 14 13

Cale­do­nia 8 3 3 2 15 10 12

Cen­tral FC 8 3 3 2 12 10 12

Pt Fortin CC 8 3 0 5 9 14 9

Jabloteh 8 2 1 5 15 21 7

Rangers 8 1 0 7 11 28 3