Donaldson favoured for Reggae Girlz job

Lorne Donaldson, assistant coach for Jamaica’s senior national women’s football team, is the front-runner to land the vacant Reggae Girlz head coach job and is expected to lead the team in its final-round Concacaf Women’s Olympic qualifiers next month in the United States.

Donaldson, who assisted former head coach Hue Menzies during the Reggae Girlz’s historic qualification for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France, is the overwhelming favourite to replace Menzies, who decided against renewing his contract with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) after falling out with the administration over compensation and communication issues.

Donaldson was yesterday reinstated as head coach of the National under-20 women’s team with former national striker Tashawna Vincent selected to serve as his assistant while Hubert Busby was named as head coach of the girls Under-17s team.

When contacted, general secretary of the JFF Dalton Wint admitted that Donaldson’s experience with the Girls puts him at an advantage for the position but underlined that no decision had been made, noting that they were still in discussions to fill the position. Wint further stated that it was too late for the administration to organise a pre-tournament camp for the Girlz ahead of their Olympic qualifiers, but gave the assurance that the new coach would be announced in time to prepare for the tournament.

Discussions ongoing

“That discussion (senior female team head coach job) is still to be had. The president (Michael Ricketts) is the one that will make that announcement, and very soon that will be organised.

However, him (Donaldson) being a part of the programme, gives him that extra edge as he understand the girls and have coached most of them already,” Wint commented.

“But there will be no camp as we can’t have any camp now. It doesn’t make a difference because the Girls are all engaged, so naming the coach now or naming the coach later will not put any pressure on the organisation,” he added.

Wint is expecting Donaldson to have a strong impact on the Under-20 women’s programme.

“Lorne has always coached the under-20 team. This is not new to Lorne and the JFF has decided to give him another opportunity, so it’s an opportunity to continue what he has started and we are expecting good results. We are expecting our teams to pull through the CFU (Caribbean) competitions and the Concacaf qualifiers,” he said.

“He (Donaldson) will have Vincent assisting him, and the other support he will get as he goes along. But these people are not new. Vincent was an Under-15 (assistant) and was elevated to assist Lorne (U-20), and the Under – 17s will go to Busby,” he added. “We have promoted Vincent because we are trying to blood females (coaches). It can’t be all male. We have to give equal opportunities to our females as well.”