“My players were really expecting to come away winners (against Caledonia) and be in the Final,” said Adam’s Construction San Juan Jabloteh head coach Earl Carter following his team’s 2-1 First Citizens Cup semi-final defeat against Caledonia AIA at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.
Jabloteh held a 1-0 advantage following a first half penalty strike by midfielder Marvin Oliver, however conceded a pair of second half goals by Caledonia striker Jamal Gay to lose the clash 2-1 and exit the tournament.
“What needs to be done now is to definitely remain as a team, because indeed (the defeat) will demoralize my players.” continued the former US based coach.
“My duty now is to keep them focused and continue to work on their fundamentals and correct their problems, in terms of increasing their level of concentration.”
Carter blames lapses in concentrate for Friday’s 2-1 defeat and Tuesday’s 3-3 Digicel Pro League draw against St. Ann’s Rangers.
“It breaks down to concentration again,” Carter added. “I’ve tried hard, in terms on working on correcting the problem I had in the games we have played. But the problem continues where we melt down in the especially in the second half.
“I’ve worked extensively on the mental to have the players concentrate on the principles of the game.
“But it seems we didn’t hold out in the second half. All credit to Caledonia because if we make mistakes we will get punished, and we made mistakes.”
“It is something we have to work on much more. It’s something ongoing. It is too much for any coach to bear, but I have to take the responsibility to continue to work with these players and try to correct them.”
Striker Willis Plaza and midfielders Jason Marcano and Luke Gullick are very optimistic that the San Juan club will improve by their next game which is against W Connection on Friday 21 October in Match Day Three of the Digicel Pro League Championship.
“The problem isn’t so much in attack, because we went ahead in the first half (against Rangers and Caledonia). But we are having problems in defense and that’s noticeable in our games this season,” said Plaza who scored three goals in the First Citizens Cup.
“But the coach is working on that over and over and hopefully we will have a much better showing in our next game.”
“I think that togetherness and holding our shape as a team isn’t there yet,” explained Marcano. “But I think with the work we are doing with trainer Gilbert Bateau to become sharper, will get us where we need to be and win the League,” said the confident midfielder.
Meantime Englishman Gullick believes his club should learn from mistakes.
“We were winning in the first half and didn’t have the same spirit in the second half against Caledonia,” he said. “It’s the same thing that happened against Rangers earlier in the week.
We should learn from our mistakes and work on getting our game right. We have two weeks before our next game and I’m sure we will improve.”