Eltham, Hydel square off for group rights
Eltham High School and Hydel will meet in a clash atop Group A in the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup match at the Homestead Community Centre today at 3:00 pm.
Eltham, who are unbeaten this season, leads the group with 21 points, three ahead of Hydel. A victory or draw for Eltham over their opponents will see them finishing top. Both teams have already advanced to the second round of the competition. They are followed by Dunoon, Clan Carthy and Ardenne, who all ended their campaign on six points.
The Gregory Allen-coached Eltham, who have scored 32 goals this season, remains the only team in the Manning Cup competition not to have conceded a goal this season from seven matches.
Hydel, who are last year’s runners-up, lost their earlier meeting this season against Eltham 2-0. They will enter today’s contest knowing that they will have to record a 4-0 victory over their opponents to win the group. Like Eltham, Hydel have scored 32 goals but they have conceded three from their seven matches this season.
Hydel Head Coach Devon Anderson says they are focusing on putting on a good performance today ahead of the start of the second round.
“We are preparing for the next zone because we are already through to the next round of the competition and it is just a matter of where we will be placed in his zone after this game,” he said.
“We are expecting a hard-fought game because we never say die mentally and every time we go out, we go out there with one thing on our mind and that is to do our best.
“We have seen where we went wrong in the first game when we lost 2-0 to them and so we corrected those mistakes and they are now ready to put on a much better performance on Tuesday,” he added.