❒ St James, St Georges eye opening day wins

St James High and St George's College, the respective defen-ding champions, are eyeing victory as the much-anticipated 2009 ISSA/Pepsi/Digicel schoolboy football season, which will feature 39 Manning Cup and 77 daCosta Cup teams, kick off at Jarrett Park in Montego Bay this afternoon.

An official opening ceremony and three first round games - two daCosta Cup clashes and one in the Manning Cup, form the day's fixture.

The opening game at 1 p.m. will see St George's College matching skills with Zone F contenders Eltham High.

The game will be followed by the official opening ceremony and dress parade at 2:55 p.m.

Following the parade, St James High will battle Zone A rivals Spot Valley at 3:20 p.m., while Cornwall College will battle Maldon at 5:15 p.m. in the second of the two daCosta Cup games.

Neville 'Bertis' Bell, coach of St Georges, expects a tough opening game.

"We are confident but this is our first game and we don't know what will happen. We have prepared ourselves well for it," said Bell.

"Eltham is always a good team because they gave us a tough fight last year and are usually a very fit team and I expect that they will be very competitive tomorrow," he added.

St George's have lost the services of their leading strikers Shamar Shelton and Kemal Malcolm, who last year combined to score over 40 goals between them.

However, they now have national Under-20 player, , who moved over from archrivals Kingston College.

quality youngsters

"This is a very young team but we have a lot players from last year, they are quality youngsters and we expect a lot from them," he said.

Eltham have retained olny two starting players from last season but their coach, Glenville Holmes, said they will be trying their best.

"We have a very young team and most of the players are inexperienced," Holmes said.

"We are going to do our best and we are not afraid of playing against St Georges because we are going to compete to the best of our abilities," he added.

The match-up between St James High, which will be fielding 85 percent of the team that won both the daCosta Cup and Ben Francis Knock Out titles last year; and a Spot Valley team, which is harbouring giant-killing aspirations, is a game that should be closely watched.