It’s official: the SKNFA Premier League regular season has ended; the Super Six teams have been decided and the three teams that have been relegated have been confirmed. The six teams in the Super Six playoffs are: St. Paul’s United, Cayon Rockets, Village Superstars, Old Road United Jets, Conaree FC, and Newtown United. Let’s review the final match week matches that led to this outcome.
Jones Group Sandy Point FC, in a Friday night matchup, having already been relegated ended their season on a high defeating Newtown United 2-1 in Sandy Point.
Sylvester Caines gave Newtown the lead in the 2nd minute before T’Ondre Rouse equalized for Sandy Point 11 minutes later. 10 minutes from full time, Zahmai Greene scored Sandy Point’s winner.
Assistant coach of Sandy Point, Kenneth Douglas, said he is proud of his players and that they will be rebuilding in Division 1 with the aim to earn promotion back into the Premier League next season.
“Just wanna say congratulation to the guys. Although we have been losing games, we told them we have to get our win before we go to Division 1, and today they went out there and they played their all; they played with energy; they played with guts and we came home with the victory,” Douglas said.
Newtown’s coach Anthony “Nets” Isaac was very disappointed with the performance of his team.
“Well, I'm very much disappointed about the results. I mean we came down here looking to go up another three points...but I'm very disappointed with the performance," Isaac said.
Also on Friday, July 21, MFCR Old Road United Jets easily dispatched of Fast Cash Saddlers United 2-0 in Saddlers’ last match of the season.
Kaylon Liburd in first half stoppage time and Jardel Isaac in the 56th minute were the goal scorers for Old Road.
On the Saturday of the final match week, St. Peters FC was trying to earn a playoff spot with a huge 5-2 win over Security Forces FC in Cayon. In the end, despite the big win, it was not enough to give them a spot.
St. Peters went up 5-0 in the first half through goals from Shevene Boston (8’), Tyquan Terrell (11’), Deshawn Collins (32’), Tyquan Terrell (37’) and Shomari Hanley (39’).
Security Forces got a pair of second half consolation goals through Julan Gordon own goal in the 47th minute and a David Joseph goal in the 58th.
Coach Austin Huggins of St. Peters offered his thoughts after the match.
“We did well in terms of scoring goals. We did get five goals this evening, but in my estimation, we still lacking in the scoring department, because we wanted to get at least 11 goals," he said.
Security Forces Assistant Coach George Kinta Gilbert said his team played a much more organized second half.
“In the second half, we organized ourselves...in the first half it was just chaos," he said.
The following match also in Cayon, between Cayon and Conaree ended in a 0-0 draw. Coach Al Edwards of Cayon said his team played a good match, despite not getting a goal.
“Our thoughts and focus now is tweak what we have (for the Super Six)," Edwards said. On the other hand, Conaree’s Coach Al Richards rued their missed chances. “I think at times we were a bit disorganized," Richards said.
Over on Nevis that same day Bath United once again blew a lead to draw the match, this time against St. Paul’s United. Romario Daniel struck twice for Bath in the 8th & 42nd min before Keithroy Freeman scored in the 84th min and Nicquan Phipps in he 90th + 3 min to earn a point.
Meanwhile, the following day at the SKNFA technical center, Garden Hotspurs were beaten 0-5 by Village Superstars.
Joseph Wilkes (16’), Devaughn Elliott (41’), Caaja Burnham (45+1’), Austin Henry (75’) and Tahir Hanley (90’) got the goals for Village.
Coach Stephen Clarke of Village, hailed his players for qualifying for the playoffs, after a very slow and hard start for his team this season.
“The first round was not the best for us as a team and then we had a lot of injuries so we could not practically play consistently,” he explained. "The second round we were more consistent. Players were more consistent, not a lot of players missing so we ended up building a bit of momentum going forward," he said, adding that the team has been playing well both defensively and attacking-wise.
Meanwhile, Coach Steven Brown of Spurs said they started the match well, but it went south after conceding an early goal.
“I wanted the guys to come out today, have fun just to find back the love of playing football because we've been in a funk these past few weeks. We started well but conceded an early goal and it kind of went downhill from there,” he added.
On Tuesday, the action continued in Nevis, this time with Bath United winning—edging Old Road United Jets 1-0. The goal came from Chris Brown in 1st min of stoppage time.
Then, on Wednesday at the SKNFA Technical Center, Village Superstars and Conaree got 2-0 and 3-0 wins, respectively, over Newtown United and St. Paul’s United.
Village’s goals came from Leroy Hanley in the 18th minute and Denis Fleming in the 34th minute.
Anthony Grant (6’), Errol O’Loughlin (45+2’) and Javern Matthew (76’) were the goal scorers for Conaree.
Football fans earnestly await the start of the 2023 Super Six playoffs, but first, there is the matter of the Concacaf Caribbean Club Shield, which will be held for the first time in St. Kitts and Nevis from August 3-13 at Warner Park and the SKNFA Technical Center.
Cayon Rockets maintained their position atop the St Kitts and Nevis Football Association Premier League following their 3-0 drubbing of MFCR Old Road United at Warner Park on Sunday.
Devontay Carty scored twice in the- 20th and 63rd minutes while Mervin Lewis sealed the victory with a third in the 68th.
Meanwhile, Bath United and Garden Hotspurs played to a 1-1 stalemate at the Nevis Athletics Stadium. Omarion Bartlette gave Bath the lead in the 13th minute. It was a lead they held until the 84th when Jeamaul Hodge pulled Hotspurs level to get a share of the points.
On Friday, a goal in each half led Security Forces to a 2-1 win over hosts Jones Group Sandy Point.
Everette Ritchen gave Security Forces the lead in the 30th minute. They held that lead until Zahmai Greene pulled Sandy Point level in the 65th minute. Parity didn’t last long as Donyelle Francis’ 70th minute goal gave Security Forces a rare win.
Meanwhile, Fast Cash Saddlers FC and St. Peters played to a nil-all draw, a result that Saddlers’ coach Samuel Phipps was happy to come away with.
“Picking up on point is good, we did not lose,” he said. “It was a fairly scrappy game but we came out with a point.”
St Peters’ boss Austin Huggins bemoaned his team’s missed chances.
“I think that we played well but too many chances went a begging,” he said. “We had chances to score, chances that I feel should have been goals, but we missed them; nevertheless, we’ve been able to get a point, looking forward to our next match.”
The weekend’s results, Cayon Rockets remain top of the table with 39 points after 16 matches while defending champions St. Paul’s United in second with 31 points, having played one game less. St Peters FC are third with 28 points with Old Road United Jets slipping to fourth with 27 points.
Village Superstars (24) and Conaree FC (24) are fifth and sixth, respectively. Newtown United has fallen to seventh on 23 points with Bath United just above the relegation playoff zone in eighth with 19 points.
Garden Hotspurs are in the relegation playoff spot with 16 points. The three regulation spots are occupied by Saddlers United, Security Forces, and Sandy Point FC with 12, nine, and two points, respectively.
Late goals from Raheem Davis and Mervin Lewis spurred league leaders Flow 4G Cayon Rockets to a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over MFCR Old Road United in their the 2023 SKNFA Premier League encounter at St. Paul’s on Saturday.
The win saw Cayon Rockets maintain their 100 per cent record and their place atop the league table this season while handing Old Road’s their first loss of the season.
After a goal-less first half, Kaylon Liburd had given Old Road the lead in the 56th minute. It was a lead that seemed likely to hold until full-time until Davis scored the equalizer in the 83rd minute. Lewis secured all three points for Cayon when he found the back of the net from the penalty spot, three minutes into stoppage time.
Assistant coach Valentine Anthony was elated at the outcome.
“We came out with the win, a very scrappy win, but nonetheless we came away with the win,” he declared afterwards.
“Our guys fought hard for 90-plus minutes and in the end, we scored a late penalty. Kudos to my guys for pulling it off.”
It was one-way traffic in the other match on Saturday as St. Paul’s United blanked Security Forces 6-0. Keithroy Freeman filled his boots with four goals scoring in the 4th, 38th sandwiching Vinceroy Nelson’s 30th minute strike as St Paul’s held the ascendancy at the interval.
Freeman would add goals in the 52nd and 77th minutes as Justine Soleyene’s own goal served to rub salt into Security Forces’ gaping wound.
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