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THE RETURN of national senior women’s head coach Vin Blaine to Grenada will be bittersweet, but he will look to put his feelings for his former employers aside as the Reggae Girlz take them on in their second World Cup qualifying game at the Kirani James National Stadium at 4:00 p.m. Jamaica time.
The Reggae Girlz cruised to a 4-0 win over Bermuda in their campaign opener on Thursday, thanks to first-half goals from Jody Brown and Trudy Carter and a second-half double from Manchester City striker Khadija Shaw, mirroring the scoreline that they posted in 2018 at the same stage of the campaign.
Blaine admits he has mixed emotions about facing Grenada, having been the technical director of the women’s programme from 2017 to 2019 and having helped to develop some of the players that are now on the senior team.
“It’s quite emotional for me because I have to play against them and also play against (Grenada head coach) Jake Rennie. It is very hard but, when it comes on to the game, as a coach, I have to be (professional),” Blaine said at yesterday’s pre-game conference.
“I respect the team and I know they are going to try their hardest, just like how our players will try their hardest,” he said.
HOPING TO BE MORE LETHAL
After the Bermuda win, national striker Khadija Shaw said that they will hope to be more lethal this time around against Grenada, as they continue to build on their team chemistry.
“Hopefully the (Bermuda) win will give us some level of confidence. (We) got four goals but we could have gotten more. But we hope that we can be more clinical in front of the goal when we play Grenada,” Shaw said.
Grenada suffered a 9-0 thrashing at the hands of the Dominican Republic in their opener on Thursday. In their last World Cup qualifying cycle, they conceded 27 goals in four games, with their heaviest defeat being to Trinidad and Tobago in a 13-0 rout.
Rennie, who worked with Blaine, said that, despite the heavy defeat, Grenada’s morale has not dropped and they look forward to a better showing without the nerves that he said led to their not sticking to the game plan.
“They didn’t apply what we had done in practice, and I think that cost us the game. Mentally, they are ready now and willing to improve on their mistakes,” Rennie said.
The Dominican Republic lead the Concacaf qualifying group after the first round of games with a healthy +9 goal difference, but head coach Vin Blaine said that it does not change his team’s targets.
“We have to win all four games and that’s important to us. I don’t look at the goal difference at the moment. At the end of the day, we’ll come up against the Dominican Republic so we’ll know we have to beat them. My concern is to get the team comfortable. There are a couple of areas that we can look at, and that is important to me,” Blaine said.
“If we play well, we are going to run up the scoreline. So I don’t worry about that right now. I worry about getting them back relaxed, and then we have a discussion and look at how we play the next game.”
Jamaica’s lone injury concern is Dominique Bond-Flasza, who came off limping after the Bermuda game and had her leg bandaged.
Blaine said that she was moving well but yesterday’s training would determine if she starts.
daniel.wheeler@gleanerjm.com
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