St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege will be hop­ing to take the field for the first time in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League this sea­son when they face Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) Tues­day af­ter­noon (Sep­tem­ber 23) at 3.30 pm at QRC Ground in Port-of-Spain.

Af­ter a bye in their first match, the “West­moor­ings Tigers” could not take the field for an en­counter against Mal­ick Sec­ondary due to a sog­gy out­field in West­moor­ings. On Sat­ur­day, flight trou­bles for Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary led to the post­pone­ment of St An­tho­ny’s third match at their own home ground.

Coach Ronald ‘Hus­tler’ Daniel said he would on­ly know the qual­i­ty of his team when they take the field to­day against the Roy­alians.

St An­tho­ny’s fin­ished third last sea­son, but this year its fate will rest heav­i­ly on the school’s Un­der-16 foot­ball pro­gramme, which will cov­er some 90 per­cent of its loss from the 2024 sea­son. Hus­tler said they on­ly have five play­ers from the pre­vi­ous sea­son, among whom are at­tack­er Jay­don Bobb, mid­field­er Akeem Ju­nior, and na­tion­al U-15 play­er Ja­mali John.

“This year, we will be very de­pen­dent on our play­ers from the U-16 pro­gramme, as we hard­ly did any re­cruit­ing from out­side,” Daniel said.

Mar­li Ram­dass, Kenya Glas­gow and Adriel Reyes have been list­ed as the play­ers to look out for, come lat­er to­day, but Hus­tler al­so named goal­keep­er N’Kosi Miller, who was tak­en in from Ch­agua­nas North, and Ja­heem Mod­este (from QRC) as their on­ly ad­di­tions to the team from out­side the St An­tho­ny’s com­pound.

“Against QRC, we are go­ing to play our nor­mal foot­ball, the St An­tho­ny’s brand, which is very ex­cit­ing as you know. We’ve had two prac­tice match­es, one against the school’s Sec­ond Di­vi­sion team, which went well for the boys, as they came away 6-1 win­ners. The team looks good, but I want to see them dur­ing com­pe­ti­tion, and then we will know how to add or take away,” Daniel said.

He told Guardian Me­dia Sports that be­cause they’re in a re­build­ing phase, he’ll be hop­ing for at least a top-six fin­ish this year.

Mean­while, QRC will have a point to prove. The dis­ap­point­ment of let­ting a two-goal ad­van­tage slip against arch ri­val St Mary’s Col­lege in their open­er at CIC Grounds on Sep­tem­ber 13 was com­pound­ed by a 4-1 drub­bing by Na­tion­al In­ter­Col cham­pi­on St Bene­dict’s Col­lege four days lat­er at Ma­haica Oval on Sep­tem­ber 17.

Coach Ken­wyne Jones’ charges re­spond­ed with a 1-0 tri­umph over Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary on Sat­ur­day, but they will be in­tent on tam­ing the Tigers when they host them to­day.

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege will al­so hope to con­tin­ue its win­ning streak at home against Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka, and Na­pari­ma Col­lege will try to fol­low suit when they come up against Mal­ick Sec­ondary at Lewis Street in San Fer­nan­do.

Tues­day’s (Sep­tem­ber 23) match­es

Fa­ti­ma vs Trin­i­ty Mo­ka, Fa­ti­ma Ground, 3.30 pm

St Au­gus­tine vs Cara­pichaima, St Au­gus­tine Ground, 3.30 pm

QRC vs St An­tho­ny’s, QRC Ground, 3.30 pm

St Bene­dict’svs Pre­sen­ta­tion San Fer­nan­do, Man­ny Ramjohn, 3.30 pm

Na­pari­ma vs Mal­ick, Lewis Street, 3.30 pm

San Juan North vs Trin­i­ty East, San Juan Ground, 3.30 pm

St Mary’s vs Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary, CIC Ground, 3.30 pm

Ari­ma North vs Sig­nal Hill, Ari­ma Velo­drome, 3.30 pm