Guyana’s Golden Jaguars battled to a 2-2 draw against St. Vincent and the Grenadines Vincy Heat in their return friendly football International Sunday evening at Victoria Park in Kingstown.
Midfielder Kanata Mannings and striker Anthony “Awo” Abrams scored for Guyana in the second half in a closely fought encounter as the two teams warm up for their 2010 World Cup qualifiers later this year.
Guyana started cautiously and were themselves on the receiving end when Randolph “Sticky” Williams scored for the home team in the 6th minute from a long range free kick that beat the Guyanese custodian at the near post, reports state.
The Vincentians held on to a 1-0 lead at half time although the Guyanese stepped up their game in the latter stage of the first session of play.
Manning scored the equalizer in the 56th minute for Guyana as his team piled on pressure on the Vincy Heat.
The Golden Jaguars pushed further into the lead when Abrams found the back of the net in the 68th minute.
Several substitutions were made by both teams and when it looked as if the Guyanese would cruise home to victory, Emerald “Monkey” George scored for the Vincentians in the 80th minute to set up an exciting final ten minutes of play before the final whistle.
The Golden Jaguars are scheduled to clash with Trinidad and Tobago today in a closed door match before returning home.
The Guyanese went down to Grenada 2-1 two Sundays ago at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground in another Friendly International.
The 21-member Guyana squad and officials left here Friday for the return match against the Vincentians whom they had beaten 1-0 three weeks ago at Blairmont in Berbice.
Several key players who were involved in earlier matches were left out of the tour due to injuries or disciplinary problems. They included Captain Charles “Lilly” Pollard, strikers Gregory “Jackie Chan” Richardson, Nigel “Powers” Codrington and midfielder Seon Cameron.
Two of the Golden Jaguars planned warm up matches against Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda were cancelled last week but the Jaguars now look forward for matches against Cuba and Honduras next month as part of their preparation for the World Cup preliminaries.
