Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter

One minute away from what would have been a hard-fought victory over defending champions Waterhouse and the road to recovery would have seemed complete for former champions Tivoli.

Well, that is until an 89th minute penalty by Irvino English forced them to settle for a 1-1 draw in Wray and Nephew National Premier League action at the Waterhouse Mini Stadium on Sunday night.

Still, the west Kingston team who haven't lost a match in their last seven games, now seem a long way from a sluggish start to the season, which saw them second from the bottom after their first four games.

"We have been playing more as a team lately, our team is healthy and a lot of players are in good form," Tivoli's coach Calvert Fitzgerald said in his assessment of the team's turnaround.

"This is my first season with them but from the outset I knew we had a great bunch of players and I knew it was only a matter of time before we got things working together," he added.

A trademark fiercely-driven free-kick by Christopher Jackson from about 25 yards took a deflection which left Waterhouse custodian Richard McCallum with no chance as he could only glance as the 26th minute attempt flew into the back of the net.

After starting the second half the better team McCallum would certainly play his part in ensuring that Waterhouse stayed in the game and made a fantastic save diving backwards at full stretch to fish a 54th minute Nicholas McCreath lob from just under the crossbar.

Waterhouse would come close to getting an equaliser on several occasions.

Waterhouse finally find a saviour in English. Breaking into the area, the lanky midfielder pushed the ball wide of substitute Richard West, who in turn brought English down with a desperate sliding challenge.

English then stepped up to fire powerfully to Williams' left from the spot to earn a share of the points for the Drewsland team, which lost Weston Forrest who was given a straight red card for a rash challenge a little over the half-way line in the 90th minute.

"We played well. They scored against the run of play in the first half, but we made some adjustments in the second half and totally took over the game. We created some chances that we didn't make use of but we got the penalty in the end," said Waterhouse coach Barrington Gaynor.

Waterhouse 1

Irvingo English 89th

Tivoli 1

Christopher Jackson 26th