Tivoli break out of slump
published: Monday | February 25, 2008
Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter
Tivoli Gardens' Sheldon Palmer (centre) prepares to control the ball ahead of August Town captain Aphas Bernard in a Cash Plus Premier League game at the Edward Seaga Stadium yesterday. Bernard's teammate David Laylor looks on. Palmer scored the opening goal as Tivoli cruised to a 2-0 victory. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
Tivoli Gardens, despite missing a penalty, snapped out of a three-game slump, returning to winning ways against bottom-place August Town following a 2-0 win at the Edward Seaga Stadium in the Cash Plus Premier League yesterday.
Following a run of impressive form, which ended with Tivoli being the first team to book their spot in the second End-of-Round final almost a month ago, the West Kingston team hit a dry patch. Losses came against Arnett in the quarter-final of the Jackie Bell KO competition, to Waterhouse in the End-of-Round final before losing the first game of the third round 0-3 to Village.
Tivoli manager Brian Rose was simply happy to see a bad string of results for his team come to an end.
"It was much better than the last few games when we weren't scoring goals and just weren't creating chances," he said.
"This can be a stepping stone to performing better and we hope this continues. The team played as a unit today and we were all around more disciplined," he said.
The win saw Tivoli move to 43 points, one behind leaders Portmore.
LUCK
Despite dominating early play, it would take a bit of luck for Tivoli to take the lead in the 15th minute.
After badly mistiming his clearance, August Town last man David Laylor recovered but played an awkward ball back to his goalkeeper Devon Haughton. With Tivoli's Sheldon Palmer advancing, Haughton missed an attempted clearance which left the Tivoli player with an empty net in which to place the ball.
LONG-RANGE EFFORTS
August Town were restricted to mostly long-range efforts, only one of which, a 62nd-minute strike from Daniel Shaw, forced Tivoli keeper Edsel Scott to spring into action, pushing the powerful shot over the bar.
Tivoli forward Navian Boyd threatened to put the home team further ahead on two separate occasions, but saw his advances to goal snuffed out by alert goalkeeping from Haughton.
Boyd did eventually get the better of Haughton in the 70th minute, as this time the beaten custodian was forced to bring the forward down the area. However, stepping up to the spot, Orane Simpson fired the resulting penalty kick wide of goal. Substitute Jermaine Taylor eventually snuffed out all hopes of a point for August Town when he netted from close range in the 89th minute.
"They really didn't come out here and play like they wanted a point today, there just wasn't enough fight from the team," said August Towns coach Hugh McCarthy.
"We have no choice but to keep fighting and, hopefully, the wins will start coming in."
