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Football: SeyPearl Premier League Northern Dynamo dampen Red Star Defence Forces’ spirits |21 September 2019

Northern Dynamo dampened the spirit of Red Star Defence Forces with a convincing 3-1 triumph at Stad Linite on Thursday afternoon in a SeyPearl Premier League encounter.

Red Star Defence Forces, 2018 league runners-up, suffered their second defeat on the trot in a week where they parted ways with their coach Nigel Freminot who had joined them in January but has been replaced ironically by former Northern Dynamo coach Cliff Nolin who took charge of the team for the first time on Thursday. But coach Nolin could not change the fortune of this title aspiring team who have also released their Malagasy duo of Jean Baptiste and former Revengers midfielder Michel Nambintsoa and has replaced them by Malagasy Tojo who made his debut against Northern Dynamo.

However, it was Northern Dynamo who made the first breakthrough as early as the 3rd minute when Gambian forward Musa Njie’s shot was deflected into corner and Malagasy Patrick Rasaminana lofted the corner to the far post and Njie blasted the loose ball into the net for a 1-0 lead.

Red Star Defence Forces then took control of proceedings but found it hard to create a decent chance except for a free kick by Tojo in the 25th minute which flew just wide of the crossbar.

Northern Dynamo scored a second goal in the 43rd minute from a counter attack. Carlos Onezime threaded the ball to Lucas Panayi who was in acres of space and Panayi let fly a cracking shot which flew past Red Star Defence Forces goalkeeper Japhet Bijoux to make it 2-0 at half-time.

Northern Dynamo were the better side in the second half and comeback kid Ahmed Maurice, who had been out injured for four years since the 2015 Indian Ocean Islands Games in Reunion where he sustained a knee injury, marshalled their defence superbly to snuff out any danger from the army team who grew frustrated. Red Star Defence Forces’ central defender Laurel Ladouce was lucky not to be booked for lashing out at Panayi in the 55th minute in retaliation but referee Egbert Havelock was lenient as he did not dish out any card.

Two minutes later, the former La Passe defender was shown a yellow card for bringing down Onezime and Rasaminana stepped up to find the top right hand corner with the resulting free kick with a superb curling shot to beat goalkeeper Bijoux to make it 3-0.

Red Star Defence Forces reduced the deficit in the 65th minute from a penalty conceded by Northern Dynamo captain, Gambian Modu Jallow, who brought down Tojo who had collected Darrel Damoo’s blocked shot and referee Havelock pointed to the penalty spot.

Tojo dusted himself off to thump the spot kick powerfully past goalkeeper Ricky Pool for his first goal for his new club for a 1-3 score.

As Red Star Defence Forces pressed forward, they almost gave away another goal in the 85th minute when Ahmed Maurice carried the ball to midfield and played it to substitute Basil Bertin who fed Onezime who raced clear but his shooting was wayward, but it didn’t matter as Northern Dynamo had spoilt their former coach Nolin’s return to club coaching and their manager Nigel Michaud-Payet was ecstatic with the result when he spoke to Sports NATION after the match.

“We wanted to bounce back after losing our first match in difficult circumstances as the players were still in shock with the passing away of their teammate and so we came all out to win in a season where we want to challenge for the top honours,” Northern Dynamo manager Michaud told Sports NATION.

As for Red Star Defence Forces manager Philip Barbé, he was disappointed his team did not make the most of the ball possession in the first half.

“We had lots of possession after gifting our opponents an early goal but then we made another mistake to go further down. Once we conceded a third goal, we seemed to resign ourselves to another loss but we must regroup and try to improve our results,” the army team manager Barbé related to Sports NATION.

 

R. J-L.

 

Word count: 692

Published: 21-09-2019

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