CATHERINE HALL, St James – With the daCosta Cup out of the way, Cornwall College will set their sights on adding a 12th Olivier Shield title when they take on Manning Cup champions Jamaica College (JC) who will be gunning for their fourth straight hold on the traditional symbol of schoolboys’ football supremacy and their 20th overall as the ISSA/FLOW Under-19 season ends at the Montego Bay Sports Complex today, starting at 6:00 pm.

A week after beating holders St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) 2-1 in the final of the daCosta Cup and snapping a 15-year drought, Cornwall College are seeking to quench another thirst today, their 15-year run without the Olivier Shield and decade-plus run of futility by daCosta Cup teams since Glenmuir High last had sole possession in 2004.

Dr Dean Weatherly, the coach of the Cornwall College team, is expecting his team to put on another good showing against JC, whom they will be meeting for only the second time in Olivier Shield since the start of the daCosta Cup in 1909.

In their only other meeting over 50 years ago, in 1963, Cornwall College were rampant winning the first leg 5-0 in Kingston with Allie McNab scoring twice then drawing the second leg 0-0 in Montego Bay.

More recently, the teams met in the first round of the inaugural FLOW Super Cup in 2014 when Jamaica College triumphed with 2-1 in Montego Bay.

It’s the result of the most recent game that Dr Weatherly says will have an impact on his team today and said the ambitions of the players have made his job easier.

“We have at least eight players from the team in 2014 still playing significant minutes this season and they have been talking about meeting Jamaica College since the start of the year and they still remember that loss,” Weatherly told the

Jamaica Observer this week.

“We also came close to beating a top Manning Cup team in a final this year, but lost to Wolmer’s Boys’ in the FLOW Super Cup final and the boys want to rectify this blemish. I don’t even have to bring that up when we meet,” he said.

Weatherly said his team was “not satisfied” by only winning the daCosta Cup. “The Olivier Shield is the height of supremacy in schoolboy football, you can’t go any higher than that and that is our goal and our aim,” he said,

After 23 games, a record 18-straight win in the daCosta Cup this season, Weatherly said there was not much more work to do in preparation for today’s game.

“We are tweaking some things we have seen, getting the players sharper because there is not much more work that we can do now except to plan our strategies as to how we will approach JC,” he said.

Weatherly has one Olivier Shield win among his nine titles at Cornwall, this coming in 2001.

Today, a number of the Cornwall College players who have won titles at all three levels, Under-14 and Under-16 will play their last games in the red and gold of Cornwall College and two will be in the spotlight, both members of the National Under-20 team and the engine of the Cornwall College success this season, Jourdaine Fletcher and Peter-lee Vassell.

Both shrugged off mini slums last week to mastermind a brilliant second half against STETHS, raking the game by the scruff of the neck and both are expected to play leading roles again today.

Fletcher has scored 35 goals this season, while Vassell has pulled the strings from the midfield.

A revamped midfield sees Howard Dent joining Giovanni Reid, while allowing the wingbacks a lot of freedom to join the attack that has produced over 70 goals all season.

Central defenders Michael Heaven and Pagiel Brown, along with Clifton Russell, have been the anchors for the defensive unit.

JC, on the other hand, are the most successful school in football and this well-drilled unit, coached by Miguel Coley, will be hard to beat. They are unbeaten in the urban Manning Cup since 2012 and have won the last three titles and four of the last six – winning in 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

But the JC juggernaut was halted last week by Kingston College in the Walker Cup and coach Coley pointed out that his team will bounce back.

“They (Cornwall) will be a very difficult team to beat in their hometown; they have won the daCosta Cup, so I am expecting a somewhat hostile environment,” said Coley

“But to our benefit we spend some time in Montego Bay in the summer, about two and a half weeks, so these boys have some experience down that side and I believe our team is getting more mentally tiougher as the season goes by. It will be a tough game. It’s an expereinced team this Cornwall team and a good team also. I think they (Cornwall) are celebrating some anniversary and they will want to give a good showing as a school,” said Coley.

“But whatever they bring to us, I know that we can manage… we have a good team, we have lost a game, but Jamaica College always bounce back in true fashion,” he noted.

JC will be looking to big game performer Donovan Dawkins, captain Oquin Robinson, the talented Tyreke Magee, Duhaney Williams, Ronaldo Brown, Malique Howell, Chavaun Willis and tough-tackling defender Ajeanie Talbott for victory.