Codrington's hat-trick lead ‘Jaguars' to exciting 4-3 win over Guadeloupe
Kaieteur News
January 17, 2007
“The best is yet to come” Those were words uttered by prolific striker Nigel ‘Powers' Codrington after firing in the first hat trick of the 2006/7 Digicel Caribbean Cup (DCC) finals to lead Guyana to an exciting 4-3 win over Guadeloupe in their second game of their group, a must win encounter.
Technical Director Jamal Shabazz did promise that his charges were going to deliver and that they did in what could be described as the most exciting game of the of the competition to date. It was start to end action for most of the encounter, Guyana starting off a bit nervy but got going as Shabazz played with the same three at the back but with three strikers this time.
“We have many attacking players and we sought to utilise them even though it was a gamble.” The game proved to be what the doctor ordered as the nippy and daft moves of Randolph Jerome, Codrington and Gregory Richardson provided all sorts of problems for the Guadeloupe defence.
The first goal came after 23 minutes when Jerome was brought down in the box after another promising run. Codrington stepped up to take the shot and rocked the back of the nets to the delight of the Guyanese supporters in the stands, Guyana 's first goal of this finals.
The new look defense continued to hold their own and with Richard Reynolds back between the uprights and Shawn Bishop in midfield, the Jaguars were looking ominous.
But with 3 minutes of added on time to go before the end of the first half, Guadeloupe found shooting range through Wilfred Loiseau in the 2nd minute to level the scores.
The Jaguars were up to this point confident of victory having defeated the same team 3-2 at the GCC ground in second round action in November.
After the break, they action picked up where it was left off in the first half, but after nine minutes of play it was Guadeloupe who were to take the lead when J-Luc Lamourde hammered his shot past Reynolds.
It was not long after that the Jaguars evened things up, nippy work again by the strikers resulting in Codrington being brought down in the area, he stepped up to take the shot and made no mistake in evening the scores.
Five minutes later, the Jaguars won another corner with defender Walter Moore taking the kick, fellow defender Howard Lowe made no mistake in heading the ball past the keeper and defence at the near post, taking the lead once again in the process.
New energy was injected into the game with the introduction of Anthony Abrams for Bishop in the 64th minute, while Shawn Beveney replaced Gregory Richardson in the 71st and Codrington made way for Abassi McPherson in the 87th minute, but not before he placed Guyana 4-2 up when he latched unto to a pass half way in the opponents half, ran past two defenders then with precision eased the ball under the advancing keeper.
But Guadeloupe were able to score another after being awarded a penalty with two minutes to regulation time. Fabien Raddas was on target.
Soon after, Jamaican referee Courtney Campbell, who had a very poor game, blew the whistle to call an end to proceedings, a well deserved win for the Guyanese who will face Cuba tomorrow in a very crucial match.
The second game saw Cuba defeating St Vincent and the Grenadines 3-0 leaving all the sides in the group with a win. This set up an intriguing day tomorrow with all the sides in must win situations to be certain of advancing to the semifinals and Gold Cup.
The performance of the referee leaves much to be desired at this level, he was very inconsistent in his calls and issued yellow cards to five of the Jaguars, Jerome, Captain Charles Pollard, Lowe, Shawn Bishop and Codrington.
Shabazz at the post match press conference told the media that they have named this group “Bobby Sookram” the group of death but he believes it is the group of ‘Everlasting life' based on the competitive nature of the teams.
All eyes are still on the Jaguars to produce the goods which they have promised to deliver and according to the Technical Director, “We will give 150, 200, 1000 percent for our country.”