Tivoli surrendered their 100 per cent win record, but stayed at the top of the standings on 13 points despite a 0-0 draw, playing one man short against Sporting Central Academy in their Digicel Premier League match at Brancourt yesterday.

Starting goalkeeper Leon Gordon was sent off in the 13th minute for a challenge on the onrushing Sporting goal-poacher, François Swaby, outside the 18-yard box and Jermaine Taylor was sacrificed to make Julian McLeish the early substitute.

Neither that spurned opportunity to score nor the one man advantage could motivate Sporting to make Tivoli pay and even an unsuspecting onlooker couldn't tell for the duration of the game the numerical difference between the two teams.

Sporting's coach Donovan Duckie, whose team moved to nine points, felt it important to not extend his team in attack unnecessarily, preferring to play it safe.

"We had to be careful against a team like Tivoli," he told The Gleaner.

"We could have been more accurate in the final third but my team has to take some credit for the way we played against Tivoli. We had to make it safe; we don't score, they don't score."

Tivoli's coach Lenworth Hyde, seemed to understand Duckie's dilemma and the advantage it gave his team to survive.

"Duckie didn't want to come out at us because he knows we are a dangerous side.

"I think he was a little cagey and I don't blame him. We were disciplined and probably it was because he was playing against a high-scoring team."

High turnover of passes

Both teams were handicapped by a high turnover of passes in midfield and around the final third. However, striker Roland Dean in tandem with the live wire Navion Boyd kept the Sporting defence cornered while Sporting's frontmen, Swaby and Karl Wiggan, never seemed committed to put pressure on the defensive duo of Rupert Murray and Dwight Heron.

For Sporting who had scored five goals in their previous two games, that probing final pass akin to the one which led to Gordon's dismissal never came and their closest chance to score came in the second half from a long-range effort by Camel Reid.

Tivoli countered mainly through imaginative one-two passes between Dean and Boyd, with the latter forcing goalkeeper Jacomena Barrett to produce decisive diving blocks against torrid shots taken inside the 18-yard area.

Yesterday's results

Humble Lions 1 Boys' Town 0

St Georges 2 Waterhouse 0

Rivoli 1 Arnett Gardens 3

Sporting Central 0 Tivoli 0

August Town 0 Harbour View 1