Football: Barclays League Division One-SMB avenge Northern Dynamo defeat |31 August 2007

Northern Dynamo had inflicted a 4-0 defeat on SMB in their first round league meeting despite playing with nine men. Asman Todisoa was the inspiration scoring a hat-trick, but on Wednesday, the Malagasy striker was a pale shadow of his own self.

Both teams were missing their regular captains, namely David Dorby and Ronny Hoareau.

SMB were more cautious this time and were the first to threaten in the 16th minute.
It all started from Che Dorasamy’s through-ball to Michel Ange Tall. Northern Dynamo’s goalie Jules Monnaie raced off his goal-line and unintentionally handled the ball and was lucky to receive only a yellow card as Tall would have been clean through.

SMB though wasted the resulting free-kick as Dorasamy’s and captain Colin Laporte’s set play failed to materalise.
Northern Dynamo responded three minutes later as Steven Télémaque broke forward to set up Jules Désir who shot narrowly wide.
A minute later Terence Kilindo’s lofted pass picked out Dorasamy who had sneaked in behind the Northern Dynamo defence but his low shot was easily smothered by goalie Monnaie.

Just past the half hour mark, Désir was unlucky to be penalized by referee Jacques André as Brian Dorby and Brian Asba got in each other’s way and the former went to the ground.  This would have given Desir a clear run at goal but he was stopped in his stride by the official.

In the 41st minute, SMB took the lead as they won a free-kick after Dorasamy was deliberately tripped by Jean-Alain Valentin who should have been booked. Dorby floated the free-kick inside the penalty area and it came off a defender to fall nicely to Laporte who blasted the ball into the roof of the net to make it 1-0.

Laporte almost added a second goal in the 50th minute as he started the move by releasing Tall whose deep cross was picked up by Roddy César who pulled it back to Laporte. Goalie Monnaie though did well to block Laporte’s fierce drive with his legs.

Sensing defeat, Northern Dynamo threw everything in attack but their high balls failed to break SMB’s resolute defence.

In the dying seconds, Todisoa found space on the right to centre to substitute Colin Marie who had earlier been booked for dissent, but he failed to connect to the cross as he was closely marked to allow SMB to claim all three points.

R. J-L.