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Proper pre-seasons and better policies regarding player availability and commitments can help in improving Police FC towards returning to its former glory days, believes technical director/head coach Richard Hood.

This month Hood guided the “Lawmen” to their first top flight Final in 18 years, but after holding off the eventual winners and favourites W Connection to a goalless first half, Police surrendered to a 3-0 loss in the Digicel Pro Bowl Final last Friday.

However Hood wasn’t entirely disappointed in his players. Instead, he believes reaching the Final proved that with the right support, Police can be a force in local football again.

Police impressed in the quarter-final and semi-final stages of the Pro Bowl by defeated both San Juan Jabloteh and Defence Force 4-2 respectively, and forward Jameel Perry top scoring in the tournament with 5 goals.

“We would take a lot of positives [from reaching a Final after so many years] and hopefully we would build on it,” said Hood following the Final at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.

Hood, who took charge in September 2012, replacing technical director Muhammed Isa and head coach Kelvin Jones, added, “We had an up and down season. We had some high moments playing well, and then we went into the Carnival period and had nine days where we didn’t train. It didn’t do us well.

“We identified the areas we need to get better at; one of course is finding means where Carnival and other things don’t affect the team. I don’t think if we take 35 persons away from duty, if it will affect the [functions of the service].

“I’ve had meetings with management on some of the issues, including disciplinary problems. Because there are a number of players that are not on the team at this moment because of disciplinary issues. And these players could have helped us.

“We are not like the Army, that if a player decides for one reason or another doesn’t want to train, we can lock him up. All we can do is drop him and it’s something we have to fix as an organisation. [Presently] it’s basically up to the player.

“We want to look at correcting these things into the next season, and I would expect for the first time since I’ve been here, we would actually have a pre-season and we would be much stronger. I don’t know how successful we would be because it is up to the commissioner,” concluded Hood.

Police finished the 2013-2014 League championship in seventh position with 27 points on the nine-team table that includes winners W Connection (50 points), runners-up Central FC (45 points), third positioned Defence Force (45 points), fourth positioned Point Fortin Civic (42 points), fifth positioned North East Stars, sixth positioned Caledonia AIA (28 points), eight positioned Jabloteh (16 points) and cellar positioned St. Ann’s Rangers (7 points).