National coach Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover believes that his charges simply stuck to the game plan and played as a team and this enabled them to win the Suriname Independence Cup Four- Nation Football Tournament last weekend in the Dutch-speaking country.
The Guyanese defeated long-time nemesis Suriname, French Guiana and the Netherlands Antilles, all by a 1-0 margins to lift the title and coach Dover was vociferous in his praises for his team which, he said, deserves a lot of credit for the way it played.
“I think the guys they played a hell of a tournament; they listened, they executed so I say hats off to them. They went out there and played organized football because all I did was say `ok look, we are going out there and fall in position three’ which would see them dropping back and allowing them to come to us and then we counter, so hats off because to play that type of game, they had to be disciplined and work together,” Dover said.
Apart from captain Howard Lowe, Dwain Jacobs, Kelvin Smith and Dirk Archer, the squad was made up of relatively new players to the international frontier and it was heartening to see how well they meshed and played as a collective unit, the national coach observed.
“I think before going there, it was a good opportunity those younger guys to go out there and prove themselves like they did. As you know some of these players were there a few months ago but things didn’t go well for us then but this time, you could see the determination and plenty effort that they put out, so I’m proud of the whole team for simply working as a unit,” Dover noted.
Though Guyana only managed to score just three goals in their three matches with Devon Millington scoring in their clash against the host and French Guiana and Dirk Archer doing the damage in the final game against the Netherlands, Dover said that it still doesn’t reflect how many chances were created.
“You know, I don’t want people to get carried away because the outcome of the games doesn’t reflect how we played really. Because, if you look at it, we had numerous chances like plenty one-on-one that they just didn’t put away. Millington had one but he played with plenty hunger, so if we had finished at least half of those chances, trust me we would have done much better but we went there, we won and next time we will do the corrections,” the dreadlocked coach said.
The Golden Jaguars are at present in a rebuilding stage and many football pundits were of the opinion that without the likes of Collie Hercules, Kayode McKinnon, Charles Pollard, Gregory Richardson and Nigel Codgrington, just to name a few, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) would have found it hard to come up with a suitable replacement but Dover thinks differently.
“You know honestly, the guys before were a good bunch of players, you know, they were very gifted in what they did and I enjoyed working with them, but let me say, I rather have a bunch of guys who would go out there and play what you want to play, than to have a bunch who believe that they are a law unto themselves on the field. So like I said, the guys before were very good, but these youngster have the hunger to play which will make it easier for us,” Dover pointed out.
The 2008 Coach-of-the-Year awardee said he will be making some recommendations to the GFF for them to keep the squad together and to give them a bit more exposure.
“Well definitely I would like the GFF to not let these guys lay off for too long you know, because soon we have to start preparing for the Digicel Cup next year. So I would like for them to give these youngsters more exposure, I mean we don’t have to bring in the other people now, but I would like for them to have more friendly matches to build their confidence a bit more,” Dover added.
Asked if this would be the team of the future, the national coach said,”No! I think there are plenty other pretty decent players out there who should be given a chance and then we have the more prominent ones so we always have the door open for them to join the programme. I personally would love to have some of the old guys back and to mesh them with this team you know, it would be a good thing to see in the future.”
