Sunday could very well be the day that Weymouth Wales lift their 15th Digicel Premier League title after scoring a workmanlike 3-1 win over Gall Hill at the National Stadium on Wednesday.
The win put Wales on 39 points ahead of their showdown with the only team that can deny them the crown, the Barbados Defence Force, in a cup decider.
The match could also be a possible Golden Boot final with Wales’ Dwayne Stanford on 13 goals and the BDF’s Mario Harte on nine.
Wales showed they had forgotten the one-goal hiccup in the previous game with Notre Dame by outplaying Gall Hill in every facet of the game.
The defence, marshalled by Julian Mottley, was so mean that keeper Bentley Springer’s record of conceding only six goals in 14 matches was hardly under threat.
Ironically, the only shot on bars from Gall Hill proved to be decisive, as a corner from Troy Speede in the second half saw Ryan Griffith beating Springer with a powerful header in the 87th minute.
On a night when Wales strikers Stanford and Kemar Headley wanted to shake off their only loss of the season, the football gods seemed angry with the talented Stanford, who should have scored his third hat-trick of the season.
A poor outfield played a part in thwarting Stanford. In the first half he broke way from the defence and had only keeper Omari Eastmond to beat, but the ball struck a rough area and went awry and Stanford tripped and fell.
Minutes later, Stanford beat Eastmond and fired from point blank range, crashing the ball into the body of Walton Ince, who was standing on the goal line.
Wales’ first two goals came early in the game.
In the sixth minute Jabbar Greene picked up a pass just inside the box and let loose a shot that grazed the underside of the crossbar and beat Eastmond into the left corner.
Ten minutes later, an arcing shot from Zaeehaeus Polius tantalizingly beat an outstretched Eastmond.
The second half saw Gall Hill still persisting in trying to dribble though an immovable Wales defence without success.
Even so, Stanford continued to miss out, as a perfect corner from Headley saw him standing two feet in front of the bars and butting the ball so hard into the ground that it bounced over the bars.
After Gall Hill pulled a goal back and began to press forward looking for the equalizer, Headley struck. Starting at the touch line, he danced past two defenders and slotted home to carry his tally to eight goals for the season. (KB)
