Nigel Si­mon

Dig­i­cel Pro League lead­ers, bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic will look to open a three point lead at the top of the stand­ings with vic­to­ry over W Con­nec­tion in the first match of a dou­ble-head­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va from 5 pm to­day. The 'East­ern Li­ons' have 37 points from 18 match­es to lead the 11-team ta­ble on goal-dif­fer­ence from Cale­do­nia AIA of Mor­vant/Laven­tille, who has played a match more. Cale­do­nia will not be in ac­tion to­day. Third is Ma Pau with 33 points from 19 match­es fol­lowed by two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Cli­co San Juan Jabloteh with 32 points while W Con­nec­tion and De­fence Force, both have 29 from 16 and 18 match­es re­spec­tive­ly.

How­ev­er, to­day's meet­ing be­tween Joe Pub­lic and W Con­nec­tion will be a test of both clubs' depth as a com­bined sev­en play­ers will be ab­sent due to du­ty with the na­tion­al team in Hon­duras. Joe Pub­lic has been hard­est hit as de­fend­er Keyeno Thomas, mid­field­ers Hay­den Tin­to and Trent Noel and strik­er Ker­ry Bap­tiste, the league's leader scor­er with 29 goals and scor­er of both goals in their first round 2-2 draw are all with the T&T squad. The W Con­nec­tion trio of goal­keep­ers Mar­vin Phillip and Jan-Michael Williams and strik­er Hughton Hec­tor are al­so in Hon­duras.

Bap­tiste's ab­sence is ex­pect­ed to be a huge blow for Joe Pub­lic as he has proven to be its main scor­ing threat for the sea­son as was ev­i­dent in his four-goal out­ing in a 7-0 win over Po­lice on Sat­ur­day. On the oth­er hand, with Hec­tor not avail­able and strik­er An­dre Tou­s­saint on the in­jured list W Con­nec­tion coach, Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er is ex­pect­ed to re­ly on Jonathan Frias, teenag­er Shah­don Win­ches­ter and An­drei Pacheco, who net­ted a tre­ble in Sat­ur­day's 5-2 win over Unit­ed Petrotrin, to pro­vide the goals. In the night's sec­ond match at Cou­va, Jabloteh and De­fence Force who will be with­out T&T de­fend­er Ke­ston Williams will both be hunt­ing points for dif­fer­ent rea­sons from 7 pm.

Jabloteh, com­ing off a 3-1 loss away to Hon­duran club, CD Marathon in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League on Wednes­day is ea­ger for vic­to­ry to close the gap on the leader, should it slip up. The "Teteron Boys" on the oth­er hand are on the hunt for max­i­mum points to stay ahead of Petrotrin in the race for qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the Big Six com­pe­ti­tion. Petrotrin, sev­enth on the ta­ble with 27 points from 18 match­es meet FC South End at the Man­nie Ramjohn, Mara­bel­la from 5 pm in the day's oth­er league match. At the end of round 20 match­es, the top six teams will qual­i­fy for the Big Com­pe­ti­tion from which the points will be added to the league points to de­ter­mine the over­all league win­ners.