First Tower were comfortable 7-0 preliminary round winners at the IJ Bathe Field against Beeches Old Boys while newly-promoted St Brelade, playing in the top division for the first time this season, won by the odd-goal in three at home to Sporting Academics in a first round tie.
Tower were three up at the break after a brace of headers by Bradley Russell and Mark Lucas’s strike.
Russell went on to net a penalty to complete a hat-trick, Lucas notched his second with others added by Ross Goodchild and substitute Steve McKenna who later went off with a hamstring injury.
Tower’s victory secured them a first-round game away to St Peter on Monday evening.
Tower secretary Geoff Liron said: ‘Beeches battled hard while we took our chances.
The pitch was hard but good and that allowed us to play some good football.’ Beeches manager Dave McVey said: ‘We got punished for some silly errors, Tower were better than us although we matched them for 35 minutes before they scored.
‘We battled really well and I can’t praise my lads enough for that.
Tower’s strength took over in the end and although we’ve had a good pre-season training we’ve things to work on and we’re looking forward to the league season.’ Beeches Old Boys: Neil Osmand; Gez Field, Peter Le Maistre, Tim Wiseman; Jamie Shaw (Martin Johnson, 72), Luke Billing, Bob Bonney (Andy Pinel, 81), Alex Labey (Hamelin Moon, 35), Andy McKnight; Joey Le Clech, Ben Fraser.
First Tower: Jack Jouanny; Blake Applegate, Jodie MacCarthy, Joel Lucas, David Syvret; José Costa (Chris Conning, 46), Mark Lucas, Helio de Freitas, Scott Walsh (Michael Agrela, 69); Ross Goodchild (Steve McKenna, 62), Bradley Russell.
St Brelade, however, made hard work of defeating the Accies.
Saints were two up at the break after a two quality finishes from Fintan Kennedy but Accies pulled a goal back midway through the second half, a crisp low left-foot 25-yard drive by Steve Neild.
Accies assistant manager Bob Doran said: ‘St Brelade should have been out of sight at half time, they missed a handful of really good chances.
‘We had a couple of new faces and it took us time to settle.
We changed things at half time and it worked, we had a couple of fine chances towards the end and we could have won it.’ St Brelade play the Portuguese Club or St Paul’s next Wednesday at either the IJB or St Saviour.
St Brelade: Michael de la Cour; Alan Duffy, Darren Mollet, Simon Logan, Mark Roberts; Matt Godel, Liam Sutton, Jack Crawford, Nick Azern; Ollie Nightingale, Fintan Kennedy.
Subs used: John Perestrelo, Russell Byrne, Scott Boydens.
Sporting Academics: Tom Lovell; Lee Attree, Steve Du Four, Noel Kernan, Paul McCutcheon; Sean Doran, Jamie Roberts, Dave Baker, Steve Neil, Jamie Roberts; Ben Gallichan, Jamie Martin.
Subs used: Ged Horgan, Danny Chapman.
Tonight’s first-round games are: Trinity v Grouville (Trinity), Portuguese Club v St Paul’s (IJB) and Rozel Rovers v St John (Le Couvent).
All 6 pm.
