“That loss to Trin­i­ty Col­lege East woke us up.”

These were the words of Mal­ick Sec­ondary coach An­tho­ny Bartholomew, as he sent a stern warn­ing to his op­po­nent St Bene­dict’s Col­lege ahead of Sat­ur­day’s (Sep­tem­ber 27) cru­cial clash be­tween sec­ond and fifth on the stand­ings in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) at St Mary’s Col­lege Ground in Port-of-Spain.

Mal­ick en­tered that match in the third po­si­tion, seem­ing­ly over­con­fi­dent and un­aware of the chal­lenges be­fore them. How­ev­er, Bartholomew, though dis­ap­point­ed by the 3-2 loss at the Ari­ma Velo­drome on Wednes­day, said: “It made us know where we are.”

The school, dom­i­nant in the North Zone in the 1990s, ap­pears to have re­turned to the Mal­ick of old with a team con­sid­ered strong in all de­part­ments of the game, both Bartholomew and St Bene­dict’s coach Ran­dolph Boyce said yes­ter­day.

“The play­ers were over­con­fi­dent but to­mor­row (to­day) we will be ready and con­fi­dent against St Bene­dict’s. I think play­er-for-play­er we have more en­er­gy, more skill and will be able to out­do our op­po­nents to­mor­row (to­day), but then again, the game is played on the day,” Bartholomew ex­plained.

His team is now fifth in the stand­ings af­ter Wednes­day’s loss with eight points from five match­es. They have lost just once in those match­es but will face a team with­out a loss to date.

Boyce, who al­so coach­es the coun­try’s Un­der-20 team, de­scribed the North­ern­ers as a very strong team which has shown it by the way they play, cou­pled with their po­si­tion on the stand­ings.

“They stum­bled a bit late­ly but gen­er­al­ly they have a very good team this year. I think their loss to Trin­i­ty was a re­sult of a cou­ple de­fen­sive blun­ders, as well as them tak­ing the East men for grant­ed. They are strong in all de­part­ments of the game, and I can on­ly see their wings as their most vul­ner­a­ble area.”

He jok­ing­ly said if on­ly they would have a slip-up against his team to­day it would be good.

St Bene­dict’s, like most of the oth­er teams had to un­der­go a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od by which they were not se­vere­ly hard-hit by, due to an on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme.

“St Bene­dict’s strength has al­ways been dis­ci­pline, team­work, and the de­sire by each play­er to work for each oth­er. This is what we are go­ing to head in­to to­mor­row’s (to­day’s) match with and hope­ful­ly, it would bring us the right re­sult,” Boyce said.

SAT­UR­DAY’S MATCH­ES

Ari­ma North vs QRC, Ari­ma Velo­drome, 4 pm

East Mu­cu­rapo vs Pre­sen­ta­tion, QRC Grd, 4 pm

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege vs CIC, Fa­ti­ma Grd, 4 pm

San Juan North vs Mir­a­cle Min­istries, San Juan, 3.30 pm

Spey­side vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, Spey­side, 4 pm

St Au­gus­tine vs Sig­nal Hill, St Au­gus­tine, 4 pm

STAND­INGS

PL*Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

1*Fa­ti­ma*5*4*1*0*16*2*13

2*St Bene­dict’s*4*3*1*0*6*2*10

3*Ari­ma North*5*2*3*0*10*3*9

4*Pre­sen­ta­tion*4*3*0*1*9*3*9

5*Mal­ick*5*2*2*1*12*9*8

6*Na­pari­ma*5*2*2*1*7*5*8

7*Sig­nal Hill*5*2*1*2*10*11*7

8*St An­tho­ny’s*4*2*0*2*9*5*6

9*QRC*5*2*0*3*7*7*6

10*Trin­i­ty East*5*2*0*3*10*11*6

11*San Juan North*5*2*0*3*8*10*6

12*St Mary’s*5*1*1*3*5*14*4

13*St Au­gus­tine*3*1*0*2*1*6*3

14*Mir­a­cle Min­istries*5*1*0*4*2*17*3

15*East Mu­cu­rapo*4*1*0*3*3*6*3

16*Spey­side*3*0*1*2*5*8*1