Humble Lion, Boys' Town draw blank

André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

Digicel Premier League strugglers Humble Lion added another point to their survival efforts after holding Boys' Town to a 0-0 draw at Effortville Community Centre yesterday to take their tally to 28 points, 11 less than their visitors.

The host had the better of an untidy opening few minutes, setting up camp in the Boys' Town half and controlling the possessional play for large spells.

However, it wasn't until 15 minutes had passed that they had their first real opportunity, Peter Morris flashing his header wide of the goal from inside the box.

Ten minutes later, midfielder Zico Herrera excited the partisan crowd with a fierce left-footer that went crashing off the bar, after the Boys' Town defence failed to clear their lines.

A disjointed -looking Boys' Town outfit managed a half chance after half hour, with Bridgeport High schoolboy Jameel Hardware volleying wide of the target from inside the penalty area.

When it rains it pours, as only minutes later, Boys' Town found themselves with another opportunity, but Hardware failed to make any meaningful connection with a Shawn McKoy cut-back inside the area before captain Michael Campbell dragged his shot wide from the top of the box on the stroke of half-time.

Entertaining clash

The Trench Town-based outfit started the second half with a little more purpose and probed at the Humble Lion back line with a number of telling runs and half chances.

Both teams traded opportunities as the game opened up towards the end, but neither was able to break the deadlock. In the end, the draw seemed a fair result for what turned out to be an entertaining clash.

Humble Lion's coach, Christopher Bender, cursed what he deemed to be his team's poor luck, but credited their performance.

"It's unfortunate. I think we could have won by two or three goals, but that's football. We knew it was going to be a difficult game but overall, and especially in the first half, we controlled the game," Bender said. "We could have scored from the first half and on another day, we would have scored."

Boys' Town's Andrew Price was happy with the effort of his young team.

"We came here with a depleted squad as we are ravished by injuries, so we got a lot of the youngsters in who wouldn't normally get to play, and they gave a good account of themselves," Price said.

"The players dug deep and fought hard. We were not able to play our short passing game because of the surface, but the players fought hard," he added.