Real de Banjul gaffer Ebou Jarra speaks after his side were held to a 1-1 draw by the Gambia Armed Forces in the GFF League Division One fixture played at the Live Your Dreams Sports Academy in Basori.

Attacking prodigy Salifu Colley’s first-half unstoppable drive from outside the area gave Real the lead after seeing Ebrima Jarju save a penalty earlier to keep the game level.

But GAF pounced late from the penalty spot to draw level and share the spoils, to the disappointment of coach Jarra and the Real de Banjul faithfuls.

Asked what he makes of the draw with GAF, Jarra said….

“We were not expecting to share the spoils but to win but that changed when they had the second penalty. I have been with Lasana Jarju with GAF and he has been the first-choice penalty taker, and he made it count for them.”

Asked what he thinks cost his side the three points in a game that a win was most needed…

When your team gives two penalty kicks, then you need to start questioning the defence line. So I believe we didn’t have patience in our own third and we allowed them to play and we gave away the ball like we didn’t play in the first half. We played better football in the first half, kept possession, and made GAF chase the ball and in the second half we had a lot of long balls, and this didn’t help.

Asked what he makes of Real de Banjul’s start to the season after winning two, losing one, and drawing one to have seven points in a possible twelve…

“Statistically, I keep records and I know that it’s not good. When you play four matches and you’re in a big club like Real de Banjul, probably you should have ten points out of twelve. So seven out of twelve is just average, it’s not good enough but then again let’s see what will happens in the next outings. If we played the way we play from the first-half up to the sixty-five minute without launching those long balls which we didn’t allow them to do, but sometimes when players go on the pitch they come with a different mentality. That was disappointing.”

Asked about Salifu’s brilliant shot that gave him the lead and how he was mesmerising the GAF defence…

“He (Salifu Colley) is a young lad, we need to give him time. People will question why he comes off, but you see that his work rate and the pressure on him keeps mounting, so his work rate dropped and this is a team where we don’t have to count on one player, we count on the eleven that’s on the pitch. He did very well, he’s doing good for himself; four outings, four starts, and two goals, that’s brilliant for a young lad like him.”

Asked about how disappointed he is to concede a penalty at that stage of the game…

“It is not only about the penalty, referees know that I don’t criticize them but I question certain decisions. Why is it that the GAF captain (Saikou Jatta) came two-footed and even the linesman was beckoning to the referee to show him that the challenge is a red card but he (the central referee) didn’t do that. So for us, in the first half, that is what killed the game. We’re not putting pressure on the referees, but my question is, why would a player come with the two-footed challenge? Let the referees and everybody remember, I am not criticizing anyone, but people will be watching YouTube and on InStat, this is recorded and we know he’s one of the top referees. So my question is, why would somebody come with a two- footed challenge and survive the whole game?

Jarra did spare time to show appreciation to the ‘brilliant’ support Real de Banjul continues to enjoy from the people of Basori and its surroundings.

“This is brilliant, it’s our home ground and we have great public and fanbase like this, we cannot thank them enough, we wish to thank the whole village, and all the fans for sympathizing with Real de Banjul and coming out in their large numbers to support this club, unfortunately, we didn’t expect a one-all draw, we were expecting a win but this is what happens, so we take it.”

Real de Banjul will be back to action again at the weekend when we host the Gambia Ports Authority (GPA) in Week-Five of the league at the Live Your Dreams Sports complex in Basori on Saturday with kick-off at 16:00 GMT (4pm).