Following a brief spell of more encouraging results, Hartford Athletic returned to form with a dispiriting 3-0 loss away at RIFC on Saturday. Wasted opportunities in a reasonably balanced first half gave way to a second period totally dominated by the hosts and the Latics return to Trinity Health Stadium with whatever good feeling had been generated in the last few weeks having totally evaporated. 

Here are three thoughts on the performance and what it says about where the club is right now.

1 – Nobody Consistently On The Same Page

One major source of Hartford’s problems on Saturday night — and most nights — is that they don’t seem to have quite come together as a team in any phase of the game. It was visible defensively in Rhode Island both from open play — where it was far too easy for RIFC to work the ball into the box — and from set pieces where again it was simply too easy for the hosts to get a free header. Going the other way, the players seemed to be on different pages more often than the same one, leading several promising transitional opportunities to be squandered as the ball was played to nobody or a runner was missed.

Part of this is almost certainly due to the lack of a settled first eleven; without consistent competitive minutes together it’s difficult for any group of players to really settle in. The reasons for this unsettled-ness are varied.

Injuries have played a role, but the club has already dispensed with three players — Romario Williams, Jay Chapman, and Rece Buckmaster — who were presumptive starters at the beginning of the season, and the turnover has also contributed to the problem. 

2 – Profligacy Continues To Be Problem

It’s no surprise that this side would waste valuable opportunities as that’s been another theme all season. On Saturday it was Deshane Beckford and Mamadou Dieng who spurned golden chances and the game might have looked very different if either had converted and the teams had been level at the half.

In this case, it’s tempting to say that it’s unsurprising: Beckford has never been a truly clinical finisher and it may very well be that Dieng will never develop that instinct. It’s not merely one or two players.

Nobody has seemed particularly confident or comfortable in front of goal all season, including the now-departed Romario Williams who had previously been one of the most consistent and efficient scorers in the history of the league. On some nights, Hartford struggles to generate meaningful chances but on others the chances are there and the players are simply unable to convert them. Even a league-average attack would put this club in a much better position and the inability to be even league-average — particularly given Brendan Burke’s track record — is deeply concerning.

3 – What Happens Now?

The season isn’t truly over — the hallmark of lower division football is that teams collapse or go on hot streaks from seemingly nowhere and with 12 games to play it’s too early to entirely turn out the lights — but it is a big mountain to climb. Absent a sudden run of results that mountain might become insurmountable over the next few weeks and it’s fair to ask what the Latics are going to do next. It seems likely — at this point — that Brendan Burke will return for 2025, in which case there’s a real need to finish this season with an eye toward the next. Significant changes will be needed to this roster (once again) but the players who are going to be back should gobble up the bulk of the minutes.

It’s perhaps also worth seeing if Dantouma Toure, Pele Ousmanou or Ian Shaul has anything to offer. The squad is rather light at the moment to talk about offloading any more players but if there are opportunities to move on from veterans who are not going to return in 2025 it would make sense to do so. It’s equally unlikely that there will be a chance to acquire anyone with a view to next year but if an opportunity presents itself, it would also make sense to seize it.

If it’s not in writing, you can’t enforce it.

So ruled Rhode Island Associate Justice Kristen Rodgers in an Aug. 9 decision, affirming a Barrington couple’s argument that they should not have to maintain a public access walkway along a seawall at the edge of their property because the public access permit wasn’t included in land records until years later. 

Rodgers’ 18-page order overturns a December decision by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, calling its decree to maintain public access to the seawall “non-sensical” and “in no support of the law.”

“Accepting CRMC’s conclusion would mandate that every unrecorded interest in property will ultimately become enforceable against bona fide purchaser for value whenever that unrecorded interest surfaces,” Rodgers wrote in the decision. 

CRMC affirms public access along Barrington seawall despite lack of documentation

The ruling is the latest twist in a three-year battle between state coastal regulators and Holly and Lance Sheffield, who purchased the six-bedroom home on Barrington’s Nayatt Road in May 2021. The couple has insisted in oral and written testimony that they had no idea the 430-foot-long seawall separating their property from Narragansett Bay must include a 2-foot-wide public path to the adjacent public access point on Elm Lane. 

Daniel Procaccini Jr., the attorney representing the Sheffields, said his clients were pleased with the decision.

“The Court recognized what they have said from the very beginning—CRMC cannot enforce an unrecorded assent against unknowing, innocent homeowners,” Procaccini said in an email Tuesday. “It is disappointing that my clients had to spend the better part of 3 years litigating this issue through multiple appeals to obtain a ruling that was obvious from the outset. The Sheffields are now looking forward to putting this issue behind them and to enjoying the same level of privacy that any homeowner could expect.”

But the dispute may not be settled.

“The CRMC is reviewing the court’s decision and is considering appealing it to the Supreme Court,” Laura Dwyer, an agency spokesperson, said in an email Tuesday. 

The 1982 permit requiring the public access point was never entered into land records, because state law didn’t require such recordings until 1988. Further obscuring access to the information were subdivisions of the land and multiple sales since the 1982 permit.

But after the couple put up wire fencing, cameras, and later a security guard to block alleged “trespassers,” state coastal regulators intervened, issuing a pair of cease and desist orders in September 2021 and May 2022 based on the 1982 public access permit.

The dispute landed in Providence County Superior Court in March 2023 because the council failed to respond to the Sheffields’ petition to administratively dismiss the public access requirement within the time frame set out by state law. A judge sent the issue back to  the CRMC in November 2023 with a strict, 20-day deadline to make its decision. The council upheld public access to the path, maintaining that the Sheffields’ plea of ignorance did not let them flout state law enshrining shoreline access. Less than a week later, the Sheffields through their attorney appealed the decision back to Superior Court. The December complaint alleges the council was “arbitrary, capricious and legally erroneous,” pointing to the lack of case law or state statute cited by the council to back up its decision.

“Indeed, in CRMC’s revisionist history, it appears no court had any occasion to comment on this unique exception to an otherwise well-understood and broadly applicable doctrine,” the complaint states.

The CRMC in response pointed to new evidence shared in the Sheffields’ court testimony — but not previously included in its public decision process — regarding Holly Sheffield’s familiarity with state coastal regulations; in other words, she should have known to investigate potential rules around the seawall. The CRMC argued the omitted information meant the decision should be sent back (again) to the state agency. 

But Rodgers disagreed, instead siding with the Sheffields based on state law allowing for judicial review when all other administrative options for contested cases were “exhausted.”