Goals in either side of half-time killed JCT's spirit. Marcus Carvalho headed in a ball that was already bound goalwards, off Francis Silveira's header.

The second came in the 65th minute when Francis' shot slipped off the JCT goalkeeper's hands, hit the bar and bounced into play. Substitute Kaustav Ghosh was at hand to toe it in.

In the intervening period, Churchill `scored' through Somatai Shaiza's diving header after right-back Denzie Ferrao had delivered the ball across the field. The goal was disallowed for off-side.

The game played at 3.00 pm had its inevitable effect on JCT, and they looked out of breath. But coach Parminder Singh did not want to blame the timing of the match. ``We conceded the first goal at the wrong time. Just when we weregetting used to Churchill having possession for long periods, we conceded the goal,'' he explained.

``If we had overcome that period we could have come up with a better result,'' he said.

JCT were back-pedalling for most of the first half. Churchill kept possession by rolling passes between themselves. Their plan to break open the JCT defence involved high passes to Francis and Marcus upfront.

The first time JCT defence was breached, with Shaiza setting up Francis, Churchill got their goal. On the second occasion, Shaiza netted from an off-side position.

In the second half, JCT had more thrusts forward. With neat interplay, they did breach the Churchill defence on a couple of occasions. Sukhjit Singh played a wall pass with Hardeep Gill. Sukhjit received the ball back from Hardeep and shot but Edward Ansah jumped out of his line and thwarted the move.

A little later, Harinder Singh set up Rampal but his shot only earned JCT a corner.

Churchill meet the winners of the second semi-final clashbetween Salgaocar and Mahindras.