'Tappa' lauds defence, lashes offence.
By: Ian Burnett Sport Editor.
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — Jamaica's head coach Theodore 'Tappa' Whitmore departed Trinidad and Tobago with mixed emotions, even as his team outclassed the hosts 3-1 in a friendly international at the Marvin Lee Stadium on Wednesday evening.
Whitmore, who drew first blood in his first coaching meeting with his opposite number Russell Latapy, underlined the Reggae Boyz's "good" overall effort against their old rivals, but did not spare words in lambasting the offensive play of the team.
"I think it was a very spirited performance from both teams, given the rivalry they've had," he said.
"Overall it was a very good performance from the Jamaican team... defensively, we were a bit stronger.... our offensive game was off, however, and we didn't get the movements upfront from Bryan, Johnson and Richards, and that affected our passing game," lamented Whitmore, the two-goal hero of Jamaica's 2-1 victory over France at the 1998 World Cup Finals
"We stopped passing the football, we weren't organised as we were in the first half and that caused the breakdown," he added.
On an evening where Jamaica were clearly the better team, Dane Richards put the visitors ahead after only eight minutes before Devon Jorsling pulled the teams level on minute 29. The home team's respite was short-lived, however, as Rodolph Austin put the Boyz back in front a minute later from the penalty sport before Kavin Bryan sealed the convincing victory eight minutes into the second half.
In preparation for the team's upcoming major assignments -- the Digicel Caribbean Cup and World Cup qualifying tournament -- Whitmore will shift his attention to the next game against Costa Rica at the National Stadium on September 5, then to the Soca Warriors for the return-leg encounter at the National Stadium on October 10.
And as Whitmore chastised his outfit's offensive deficiency, Latapy likened Trinidad's shambolic defending to that of schoolboys.
Prior to the contest between the Caribbean's top-ranked teams, Latapy, a former star player, said he wanted to use the encounter as a test for his team, as well as to have a look at Jamaica as well.
"If we're going to play against quality opposition we need to improve a lot more," Latapy told the media in a post-game press conference.
"To be honest, the aspect that I'm most pleased with is that it shows exactly where we are, in terms of how we want to play football and how the players are taking things on board... tonight, defensively, it was a disaster. I thought we defended like schoolboys and we definitely have to do better... that performance was definitely not up to par," he added.
"... We had to do some defending and the three goals we suffered we actually gave away, but I think we were a bit fortunate in some aspects of the game that we didn't lose another goal," Latapy admitted.
Still, he believes that despite the result, the game served its purpose. "The purpose of this game was to give everybody a bit of experience and use as many players as we liked. I had a very good look at Jamaica tonight (Wednesday) and I see how organised they are and how they play football and we know what to expect from them now.
"Tonight (Wednesday) Jamaica had more possession than we had, but it is easy when you are playing from on top when you are winning games and the other team has to be chasing the ball, you can show more composure on the ball and that sort of stuff, and I think that is what happened, but we have to be able to adjust defensively to any system we play against and tonight we didn't adjust properly to it."
