T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League cham­pi­ons De­fence Force were held to a 1-1 draw by the Bar­ba­dos Pre­mier League's reign­ing league and knock­out cham­pi­ons Wey­mouth Wales at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day night (Sep­tem­ber 25).

The re­sult leaves the Tetron Boys third in Group B and in need of a vic­to­ry in their fourth and fi­nal match of the group stage, which will be away against the un­de­feat­ed lead­ers, Cibao FC of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, on Wednes­day, a prospect De­fence Force head coach De­vorn Jorsling was not en­tire­ly hap­py to ad­mit at the post-match me­dia con­fer­ence.

"You know, some­times in life, a half of bread is bet­ter than none. Ob­vi­ous­ly, we are dis­ap­point­ed be­cause we want­ed to get the three points. But in say­ing that, all is not lost. (If) we go to Cibao and win the game, we still have a chance of com­ing out of the group stage," Jorsling said.

"Once there is hope, I will be­lieve. And it's just for that be­lief to be trans­ferred to my play­ers in the dress­ing room. I think every­body's head is in the same di­rec­tion, and they will be dis­ap­point­ed, but it's my job and the tech­ni­cal staff's to get them back up for it next week, Wednes­day."

It will not be an un­fa­mil­iar task for Jorsling and com­pa­ny, as Thurs­day night's match came just eight days af­ter the heart­break of con­ced­ing an 82nd-minute goal in a 2-1 de­feat to Ja­maica's Cav­a­lier FC on Sep­tem­ber 17 at the same venue.

Their meet­ing with Wales, who start­ed the day third in the group, ahead of them on goal dif­fer­ence, pre­sent­ed a fresh op­por­tu­ni­ty for De­fence Force, which they seemed to rel­ish in a bright start. In the fifth minute, winger Kai­him Thomas drift­ed past two back-ped­alling de­fend­ers on the left be­fore shoot­ing wide of the mark, with Wey­mouth goal­keep­er Kish­mar Primus scrab­bling at full stretch to his left to cov­er the an­gle.

Wey­mouth was for­tu­nate to avoid go­ing down to ten men in the ninth minute. De­fence Force for­ward Isa­iah Lea­cock chased af­ter a Kevin Moli­no through ball in­to the Wey­mouth penal­ty area, and af­ter Primus had scooped up the ball, de­fend­er Rashad Smith swung an arm in anger, ap­par­ent­ly at Lea­cock's at­tempts, mak­ing con­tact with the Army strik­er, who went down im­me­di­ate­ly, clutch­ing his face. How­ev­er, ref­er­ee Michael Akan­gou ei­ther did not spot the in­ter­ac­tion or deemed it too in­signif­i­cant to rep­ri­mand.

Lea­cock had his chance to re­spond with a goal in the 19th minute, but his shot from 20 yards out was di­rect­ly at Primus, who made a straight­for­ward save.

The men from Car­ring­ton Vil­lage in the parish of Saint Michael, Bar­ba­dos, had to wait un­til the 24th minute for their first chance of the match when a cross from the left flew all the way across a crowd­ed De­fence Force penal­ty area, falling to Rashad Jules, who was un­marked. How­ev­er, his left-foot­ed vol­ley pulled a sharp right-hand­ed re­flex save out of Jabari St Hillaire be­fore the Army scram­bled the ball away from the dan­ger zone.

In the first minute of three ad­di­tion­al first-half min­utes, the home team found the net when Justin Arau­jo-Wil­son's left-foot­ed in­swing­ing cor­ner kick from the right was met by the head of Shaquille Bertrand, who slipped un­de­tect­ed in­to a crowd of stag­nant Wey­mouth de­fend­ers. That goal sep­a­rat­ed the teams at half-time.

In the fourth minute of the sec­ond half, the sol­diers craft­ed an­oth­er gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to add to that 1-0 ad­van­tage when Bertrand slith­ered away from his de­fend­er along the right and played a cut-back to Lea­cock, whose first touch de­nied him a shoot­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Lea­cock was a cen­tral fig­ure again in the 72nd minute when he went tum­bling in­side the Wales penal­ty area. As he gave chase to a through pass from team­mate Kathon St Hillaire, Lea­cock ap­peared to have been tripped by Wey­mouth de­fend­er An­dre Ap­ple­waite; how­ev­er, Akan­gou im­me­di­ate­ly shut down any protests while Lea­cock writhed in ap­par­ent pain.

"Some­times in these press con­fer­ences, you don't want to talk about the ref­er­ee, but any­one who watched this game tonight, I think it was bla­tant, the in­ci­dent with Isa­iah Lea­cock. There was con­tact; every­one heard it, and for him not to give that, it was re­al­ly a dif­fi­cult call, but that's foot­ball," said Jorsling.

It was Lea­cock's last in­volve­ment in the match, as he was re­placed by new sign­ing Tyrese Bai­ley, who made a de­but ap­pear­ance af­ter be­ing ac­quired as a free agent on Tues­day.

Five min­utes af­ter the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Lea­cock, Wey­mouth plot­ted an­oth­er long throw-in that would lead to Army's un­do­ing. This time the ball was speared in by Mario Williams and skimmed off the head of sub­sti­tute Je­lani Pe­ters and fell invit­ing­ly to Ac­k­eel Ap­ple­waite, who dis­patched his vol­ley past a hap­less St Hillaire.

Jorsling said, "We knew the long throws were one of their strengths, and to con­cede a goal was re­al­ly dis­heart­en­ing."

With time run­ning out, Pe­ters al­most script­ed his and his team's re­demp­tion. Cur­tis Gon­za­les' an­gled aer­i­al pass in­to the penal­ty area at the end of the sixth and fi­nal minute of added-on time was knocked down by his cen­tral de­fen­sive part­ner, and with a win­ner ap­pear­ing ap­par­ent, Thomas' shot on the swiv­el was de­flect­ed away from goal and out of play by Williams, earn­ing a hard-fought 1-1 draw for Wey­mouth.

"I think they have a great fight­ing spir­it, a great de­sire. They play to their strengths, which is set pieces and long balls, and I have to give cred­it to them," said Jorsling.

The re­sult pro­pels the Ba­jans in­to sec­ond in Group B and keeps them ahead of the De­fence Force on goal dif­fer­ence, which gives them con­fi­dence ahead of a home match against Cav­a­lier on Wednes­day to close off group play.

Head coach Asquith How­ell said, "We came here for three points, but we are con­tent­ed that we got one, so we have to go home now and win that game to qual­i­fy. That is an ad­van­tage for us be­cause we're at home. The cham­pi­ons of T&T played the cham­pi­ons of Bar­ba­dos. They are in a pro­fes­sion­al set­up, and we are not, so that re­sult shows that we can play at this lev­el, so we're look­ing for­ward to go­ing to the next round."

Mean­while, the De­fence Force is left with a must-win fix­ture in their fi­nal group as­sign­ment in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and will need sec­ond-placed Wey­mouth and fourth-placed Cav­a­lier FC to play to a stale­mate in Bar­ba­dos on Wednes­day.

CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Club Cup

Match­day 4 Re­sults

Ju­ven­tus des Cayes 0 vs Cibao 3 (Gabriel Dilone 14th, Ri­val­do Cor­rea 42nd, Wal­ter Acu­na 63rd)

De­fence Force 1 (Shaquille Bertrand 45+1') vs Wey­mouth Wales 1 (Ac­k­eel Ap­ple­waith 79th)

Group B

CLUB*MP*W*D*L*PTS

Cibao*3*3*0*0*9

​​​​​​​Wey­mouth Wales*3*1*1*1*4

De­fence Force*3*1*1*1*4

Cav­a­lier*3*1*1*1*4

​Ju­ven­tus des Cayes*4*0*1*3*1

CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Club Cup

Up­com­ing Match­es

Group B (Wed Oct 1)

Cibao vs De­fence Force, 8 pm

Wey­mouth Wales vs Cav­a­lier, 8 pm