STETHS eager for daCosta Cup kick-off
Published:Sunday | November 7, 2021 | 12:11 AMRobert Bailey - Sunday Gleaner Writer
WITH LESS than a week to go before the start of this year’s ISSA/daCosta Cup schoolboy football competition, St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) head coach, Omar ‘Rambo’ Wedderburn, said his team is ready and raring to go as they plan to put on an exciting showing for their fans.
STETHS, who were quarter-finalists when the competition was last held in 2019, will face Maggotty High in their opening match of the competition next Saturday.
STETHS, one of the most consistent teams in the daCosta Cup over the last two decades, last won the competition in 2015.
Wedderburn told The Sunday Gleaner that they have a talented group of players who have demonstrated a lot of quality in training and, therefore, he believes that they have the requirements to go all the way in this year’s competition and break this six-year drought.
“Every year we make our preparations to go all the way, but sometimes we don’t meet our expectations and sometimes we fall in-between,” said Wedderburn. “However, this year is no different because from the competition has been scheduled we’ve only had one thing on our mind, and that is to go all the way and this is our main focus right now,” he said.
“We are here and the players are raring to go and we are ready to let go some crocodile teeth on Saturday,” Wedderburn said.
“We are just waiting right now for the competition to kick off on the 13th to just go out and display what we have been working on at the training field because it has been well over a year now, and so we are hungry for some football,” he said.
Wedderburn underscored that they have not retained any of their regular starters from the 2019 team. He also pointed out that their preparations going into this season have not been ideal, but they have done a lot of work in preparing the players mentally.
BIG DIFFERENCE
“Honestly, it is a big difference preparation-wise because of the COVID 19 pandemic, but we have met almost all the requirements going into the first game on Saturday,” said Wedderburn.
“We are on the right track, but mentally it has been really challenging because we are making the preparations without any practice games and you have to be playing squad games,” he said.
“A lot of times you want to see your players going up against players that they don’t know, with different playing styles, and deliver what you are coaching them, but that didn’t happen for us. But we are confident and the players are confident going into this season,” Wedderburn said.