The two time defending Champions Harbour View in their player rotation policy rested the entire first team and the second choices struggled some times before stumbling and regaining their footing to punish the presky Rae Town contingent from creating an upset at “The Compound”.
Substitutes Richard Edwards and Andre Fagan combined in the 99th minute to dash the hopes of the now rejuvenated Rae Town FC who arrived at the Harbour View stadium full of commitment to succeed.
The Donovan “Whitey” Evans, coached team had defeated three superior rivals namely Port Royal, Brown’s Town and Bull Bay in the initial stages to advance to the quaerter-finals and were seeking their biggest scalp ever.
Early runs into the visitors penalty area with shots by strikers, Mitchily Waul and Jomo Gordon were well handled by goalkeeper, Andrew Martin. However in minute 25 Kevin Wooley, broke the dealock when his overlapping run down the right ended with a shot on goal, that was deflected past the goalkeeper to score.
Sixteen minutes later Keith Kelly drove his effort goalwards and the crowded defensive network inside the penalty box again resulted in the deflected attempt creating another goal just ahead of halftime to make it 2-0.
The second half begun with Rae town pushing more players into attack and they were soon rewarded when two defensive errors lead to goals, firstly a smart strike from James Durant‘s left-foot sailed over Michaud Barrett in goal.
Then another mis-understanding in defence gifted the ball to Donald Foster, who waltzed past Barrett to equalize in the 68th minute. The Rae Town aggregation were jumping in the stands as the players, coaches and the bench all celebrate “what maybe” the great upset.
They moved forward with confidence but could not breach the home team on their own merit, they ran harder, faster and more often to achieve the goal but no more was forthcoming.
Harbour View quickly made three substitutions with ten minutes to go to steady the rocking ship as Richard “Shortman” Edwards assumed charge of games flow, the tide was changing immediately.
2-2 at fulltime, as the Rae Town group jogged, danced and pranced as the midst of gripping excitement gripped the stadium in expectation of what next?
Soon the calmer more experienced HVFC grouping took over the ball possession stroking around slowly but deliberately penetrating the opponent stopped regularly by offside calls as anxiety overhauled patience.
Edwards released Fagan down the right and his first touch was perfectly placing the ball inside the area before he crashed his shot past the goalkeeper to kill the hopes of the giant –killers.
The second half of extra time added to the woes of the visitors, as Mitchily Waul was in full stride before chopped down in the penalty area and getting up to convert the penalty in minute 113 making it 4-2 as reality struck hardest, it was over bar the shouting but Rae town has a lot to be proud about as the Champions know they were in a game, not just for 90 minutes but 120 and some serious questions were still left to be answered.
Harbour View plays the winner of quarterfinal 4 being played later today with Arnett Gardens FC versus Meadhaven United at the Anthony Spaulding Complex., on Sunday February 1 at a venue to be announced.