Dig­i­cel Pro League cham­pi­ons bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic have signed hard tack­ling de­fend­er, Guyana's Charles Pol­lard and Mar­cus "School­boy" Am­brose from east­ern ri­vals Cale­do­nia AIA of Mor­vant/Laven­tille. With key de­fend­ers Seon Pow­ers and Keyeno Thomas mak­ing the switch to Ma Pau dur­ing the Christ­mas hol­i­days, Joe Pub­lic was left with no choice but to hunt ca­pa­ble re­place­ments ahead of the 2010 sea­son and has man­aged to lure the for­mer Cale­do­nia skip­per to the "Li­ons Den".

The East­ern Li­ons coach Derek King, who led his club to five ti­tles this sea­son con­firmed yes­ter­day that the 35-year-old Pol­lard who joined Cale­do­nia from North East Stars in 2007 signed a one-year deal. "Pol­lard has a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence and great lead­er­ship qual­i­ties that will help steady our de­fence this sea­son," said the 29-year-old King. "We have the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­ons, then Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League and do­mes­tic com­pe­ti­tions ahead of us and we will need ca­pa­ble play­ers such as Pol­lard."

The 24-year-old Am­brose has al­so signed a one-year con­tract while Un­der-20 play­ers Re­shad Wint and Mar­cus Joseph will al­so be part of his set-up as the club at­tempt to de­fend the Pro League ti­tle, Big Six, Toy­ota Clas­sic, FA Tro­phy and Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl while chal­leng­ing for a place in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons' League when they con­test the CFC Cham­pi­onship ear­ly this year. De­spite los­ing key play­ers goal­keep­er Ale­jan­dro Figueroa and de­fend­ers Pow­ers and Thomas to Ma Pau and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of "goal ma­chine" Ker­ry Bap­tiste earn­ing a for­eign con­tract, King is con­fi­dent that he will have a an­oth­er ca­pa­ble bunch of play­ers.

"We are still wrap­ping up some new con­tracts and in talks with a num­ber of young play­ers," he said. King is al­so ex­pect­ing a cou­ple of tri­al­ists from the USA, as the club con­tin­ues to gain in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est.