De Garis's heroics knock Saints from top of the perch

PAUL DE GARIS produced one of the great goalkeeping displays of recent seasons to pep up his sick brother, Martyn, the Sylvans' first-team coach. As top-of-the-table Saints forged forward with ominous purpose in the first period, de Garis saved his side from a potentially heavy defeat.

The former island keeper made a handful of outstanding saves in a goalless first half and then stood back and watched his teammates hit three second-half goals which, combined with North's big win over Vale Rec, saw wasteful Saints knocked off top spot.

The game finished with Venezuelan Eduardo Santana scoring a goal of the highest class and Saints leaving St Peter's bemoaning their poor finishing.

'I counted 15 scoreable chances. Their keeper was man of the match and they deserved it by merit of scoring more goals,' said a disappointed Colin Fallaize.

'Even in the second half we created good chances, but we just didn't have that cutting edge.'

Dave Gilman, standing in for coach de Garis, called his keeper 'a rock'.

'He's been class all season, a real bonus for us. On this form, he's the best keeper in the island.'

Sylvans' win was their second in three league games and with a handful of players to come back into the side, they should be a force to be reckoned with all season.

But for 45 minutes they were distinctly second best to the black-and-whites who were being driven forward from a dominant midfield heartbeat of Ben Coulter, Charles Pinsard and, ahead of them, Dom Heaume.

Kevin Graham and Chris Mauger had both gone close before the first example of de Garis's heroics on 18min.

Heaume rolled a pass square for Mauger and the wing-man cracked a superb 25 yarder for which the keeper flew high to his left to tip around the post.

Five minutes later it was Danny Felbabel who was denied and then Pinsard thought he had headed his side in front only to see de Garis brilliantly parry clear.

Sylvans had chances too. Nathan Pattimore had to be alert to deny Matt Warren and the clever South American also set up another opportunity for the Sylvans skipper, which he wasted with a poor finish.

Pattimore stuck out a leg to deny Sam Matthews a goal but the main threat continued to come from the visitors and with half-time fast approaching, Pinsard fired a fierce right-foot shot towards the top left-hand corner and de Garis, again, sprang athletically to tip the ball away for a corner.

The second period opened with Heaume missing badly with a close-range header and Sylvans broke to the clubhouse end and opened the scoring.

Matthews cut a dangerous ball across the face of the goal and young Aaron Gallie unluckily turned it into his own net.

On 53min. it was 2-0.

Busy bee Beacom found room to square from the touchline and with the Saints defence asleep, Kris Moherndl stole in to sidefoot home from close range.

Within a minute Heaume had danced past a couple of challenges in the box and rifled a shot high into the net to revive Saints, but Graham and Pinsard added to the list of missed chances for the visitors before Sylvans got their killer third on 73.

Beacom, who had recently missed a fine chance himself, delivered a well paced through ball for Santana and showing good strength, he held off a defender before dinking a lovely chip over the advancing Pattimore and into the net.

Sylvans' assistant coach was not surprised with the quality of his finish.

'To be fair to him, he does it in training.

'As he adapts to football over here, I think he will prove to be valuable.'