WOLMER’S Boys’ clipped Group J rivals Norman Manley High 1-0 to get off to a winning start in the second round of the ISSA/LIME Manning Cup competition at the Constant Spring field yesterday.

Jaheel Hyde got the goal in the third minute of the match.

Another Group J team, Bridgeport High, also moved to three points after a comprehensive 4-2 win over Holy Trinity High in the second match at the venue.

Earlier, spectators were barely settled in when Hyde, the outstanding national youth sprint hurdler, booted in a left-footed half volley from close range.

Despite scoring that early, Wolmer’s never hit full stride, which left head coach Ludlow Bernard lamenting that it was “not one of our best games” of the season.

Norman Manley did not appear overwhelmed by conceding early and battled gamely in the first half. The Maxfield Avenue-based school was spurred by several individual efforts in central and wide positions, but some promising moves ended prematurely in the attacking third.

Norman Manley’s coach Alrick Clarke said that “indiscipline” in the approach to training meant that their “passing game” suffered against their Heroes’ Circle-based opponents.

Wolmer’s were more composed on the ball and opened up a few opportunities but their attackers, in particular Jordan James, lacked the finishing touch.

The second half was a more even contest as Norman Manley fought gallantly, but without the requisite precision, to find the equaliser. For their part, Wolmer’s appeared flat and struggled to push home the advantage.

In the second game, Bridgeport High, despite having a player short for more than half the game, outlasted Holy Trinity High in an entertaining 4-2 win.

Bridgeport’s Rayon Swire scored in the 33rd and 48th minutes, in between strikes from teammates Rojay Smith (16th) and Timothy Kamaka (77th).

Nicholas Hamilton also hit a double for Holy Trinity, scoring in the 27th and 40th minutes of an open encounter.

Both teams showed their attacking intent in the early exchanges, but it was the Bridgeport outfit which went ahead when Dwayne Lettman crossed from the right side for Smith to sweetly head home.

Hamilton, who was a live wire throughout the afternoon, pulled Holy Trinity level three minutes short of the half-hour mark with a side-footed volley.

Swire, whose cousin died under tragic circumstances in Portmore on Saturday, put Bridgeport back in front when he ran onto a ball over the top of the defence and slid his effort beneath the advancing Holy Trinity goalkeeper Sean-Paul Daley and into the net.

He celebrated by removing his jersey and revealing a T-shirt paying homage to his fallen relative and was handed a mandatory yellow card.

In the 39th minute Bridgeport went down to 10 players when Keldino Davis was shown a straight red card for deliberately handling Holy Trinity player Shamar Stephenson’s goal-bound effort inside the 18-yard box. To add salt to the wound, the resultant penalty kick was scored by Hamilton, as the teams entered the half-time break at 2-2.

Bridgeport surprised many by taking a 3-2 lead a mere three minutes into the second period when Swire scored on a simple tap-in following a deflected effort that came his way.

Holy Trinity’s Hamilton missed out on a triple and his team’s equaliser when he hit the crossbar with a lob on the hour mark.

But Bridgeport, showing superb fitness and good tactical discipline, hardly showed signs of being a player short. They made the game safe 13 minutes before the close when the determined Kamaka, a substitute, outran the Trinity defence to calmly slot home.

Meanwhile, today’s matches in the Manning Cup competition will be played in Group K at the Spanish Town Prison Oval.

In the curtain-raiser at 1:00 pm, title-holders St George’s College meet Calabar High, while at 3:00 pm, Spanish Town High welcome Camperdown High.