St Martin’s close in on the top two
THE Saints are marching in – dangerously if your team plays at Rovers.
A 2-0 away win at last season’s would-be champions North, coupled with title rivals Rovers and Sylvans battling out a goalless draw at Port Soif, means St Martin’s have trimmed the gap to the top to seven points with four games in hand.
Next Saturday’s visit to Port Soif will be the big six-pointer and the league leaders will need to rediscover their shooting boots after they wasted a string of quality chances to overcome Sylvans.
Kevin Gillease, the Rovers coach, admitted it was not what he had hoped for.
‘It was a disappointing result but a positive performance,’ he said.
‘I thought we were by far the better team in both halves. I thought we completely dominated the game, the defence was solid, the midfield played well and everything good up to the final third.
‘Sam [Hall] made a difference to the game, which I thought he would. That was the game plan to leave him on the bench and bring him on. But we just couldn’t get the goal. You shouldn’t be able to create so many chances and not score a goal.’
Martyn de Garis was delighted with the draw especially as his side were ‘absolutely spent’ having played 120 minutes of tough cup football in midweek.
‘We set out to be organised. With all the flair players they’ve got we tried to be compact as much as we can and try and hit them on the counter.
‘I thought we got into a couple of really good positions where we could hurt them but it wasn’t to be today.’
In the other top-flight game on Saturday Manzur went some way to erasing their pre-lockdown nightmare against Rangers by trouncing the same opponents 6-1 at the Track.
Playing arguably their best football of the season to date in the view of their coach, Mark Romeril, Manzur were six up at the break, Craig Young helping himself to a hat-trick, Marlon Jardim scoring two and Liam Mahon netting the other.
‘In the second half we were tired and got sloppy,’ added Romeril who will lose Tom Dodds for a game after he was red carded for a professional foul late on.
Match reports in Monday's Guernsey Press.
