De Four: Easy like Sunday morning

COACH OF Cunupia FC, Michael De Four, has described his team's 2-1 victory over Queen's Park in the TT Super League Cup final as "easy like Sunday morning."

Playing at the Arima Velodrome on Sunday, Michael Darko (20th minute) and Gerald Meloney (61st) were on target for Cunupia, as Devon Modeste (35th) responded for the Parkites.

De Four noted his team was able to comfortably deal with the absence of influential striker Kevon “Showtime” Woodley, who picked up a red card in last weekend’s semi-final against league champs FC Santa Rosa.

“(It was) normal,” said the Cunupia coach. “That’s why we train, for these types of situations. We would prefer if it’s not that way but if (so) we just have to deal with it. And I think we did pretty well.”

The Parkites had the momentum going into the second half, but De Four said he did not have much to say to his players during the half-time interval.

“The only talk was to calm down the adrenaline that we had, because overall I think we play a more superior football and we could beat them at any given day,” said De Four. “It was just to calm them down and stick to the game-plan.”

Cunupia only had two reserves on their bench, and their coach revealed it was because of discipline.

"If you’re not training (consistently), you cannot play for us,” he said.

Reflecting on the 2018 season, De Four said, “It was an excellent season. We lifted some silverware – we didn’t lift any last year.”

He added, “This is our second year in the League. All and all, it was a good year.”

After finishing second in the league race and the cup, Parkites’ assistant coach Wayne Sheppard was disappointed with how things transpired.

“I thought the game was hard fought by both teams,” he said. “I thought (we) fell short in some of our passing, and that is what let us down in the attacking phase of the game.

“Defensively, we made two errors and we were punished for that.”

Queen’s Park resorted to a long-ball strategy in the latter stages, including captain and central defender Yohance Marshall playing as a centre-forward.

But Sheppard explained, “That wasn’t the instructions, I think that was a bit of panic from the guys, knowing that we were 2-1 down and time was going. Our strength was in the midfield.

“That was unfortunate, that wasn’t a true representation of Queen’s Park during the entire season.”

Sheppard described the season as disappointing, as they were unable to gain any trophy, despite the work that they put in.

Marshall, Sean De Silva, Keston George and Elton John joined the team this season, but John returned to his former club San Juan Jabloteh in October.

Sheppard hailed the group for their professionalism, especially in training.

“I’ve been a member of Queen’s Park since 1993,” he acknowledged. “We’ve had more talented teams than this but we’ve never had a team that has been as disciplined as this team.”