Tivoli Gardens FC virtually assured themselves of a place in the Jamaica Premier League second-round on Saturday, when they defeated leaders Vere United 1-0 at the Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence at the University of the West Indies.

A Rushane Thompson strike in the seventh minute separated the teams.

Thompson was scoring his first goal of the season.

Tivoli Gardens occupy the fifth position in the points standing on 13 points, the same as third-placed Waterhouse, fourth-placed Portmore United and sixth-placed Dunbeholden, with goal difference being the separating factor.

Vere lead the 11-team competition on 14 points, the same as second-placed Waterhouse, with goal difference once again allotting placement.

At the end of the first round, the top six teams will advance to the second round of the competition, where they will play each other again with the top four progressing to the semi-finals.

At that stage, the top team in the competition will play fourth place with the second playing third for a spot in the final.

Nine teams can still progress to the second round, as only Molynes United, in 10th position and the 11th-placed Humble Lions cannot advance at this stage. Cavalier are in the seventh position on 12 points, the same as eighth-placed Harbour View.

Arnett Gardens in the ninth position on seven points, still have a mathematical chance of advancing. They will need to win the two remaining first-round matches and the teams ahead of them falter in their final set of matches.

In the match on Saturday, Tivoli Gardens took the lead when Romaine Bowers looped a free-kick into the Vere United penalty box as defender Kenroy Lumthen’s intended clearing header landing at the foot of Anthony Nelson still inside the box.
Nelson, centre of the goal and with the area crowded, controlled and played the ball into space to Thompson, who slammed home past goalkeeper Kadeem Davis to hand Tivoli Gardens the early advantage.

Tivoli Gardens had the upper hand in the early minutes before the goal and maintained their dominance after although both teams traded some good attacks for the remainder of the match.

Winning coach Philip Williams credits an all-around performance for the victory, which was led by the midfield and defence.

“Vere is very organised and they shift from side to side very well so our game plan was to definitely control the middle in terms of connecting some vertical passes and we did that which was key for us today.

“Barrington Pryce and Odean Pennycooke in defence give the foundation for us to feel free in the other departments. That’s one of the departments that I am very comfortable with. They have been starting together from the second match and they have good chemistry going between themselves at centre backs and the other two wing-backs.
“It’s working for us and they have been keeping it tight at the back for us, which is good,” Williams said.

Meanwhile, the head coach of Vere United, Donovan Duckie, was pleased with their overall performance despite losing the contest.

“I think we started the game tentatively. Tivoli knew what they wanted to do as they were more aggressive in the first few minutes and then we conceded the goal,” Duckie said.

“I thought we played well. I was very pleased with our performance and we created some chances, we got some good looks and should have penetrated some areas that we wanted to penetrate but we were indisciplined in terms of that.
“I am pleased with the overall performance. We lost a good game and credit to Tivoli, they did well, they did enough to win the game and there is a lot of lessons that we can take from this game, going into the other,” Duckie stated.

According to Duckie, his charges started to rush to get the equaliser, which impacted the standard of their play.

“In analysing the two halves, we were a little more patient in the first half, after the first 15 minutes. In the second half, we wanted to score back so badly, it ended up in indecisions by us, so we kept on getting caught in transition.

“We had too many turnovers because we were too direct. We could have been more patient and tried to break Tivoli Gardens down along the flanks, but instead, we wanted to go straight down the middle,” Duckie said.