Butler rails against losing talent after Mona’s impressive 10-0 win
WITH THE first win for Mona High in this season’s ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup under its belt, head coach Craig Butler is hoping his project’s potential will provide enough of a deterrent so as to stave off competition for talent from the traditional powers.
Mona dispatched Papine High 10-0 in their game yesterday at Ashenheim Stadium, fueled by hat-tricks from Robino Gordon (first, 45th, and 48th minutes) and Zhanie Pinnock (33rd, 55th, and 84th minutes), which marked an improvement in their finishing when compared to their seasonopening 2-0 loss to Kingston College.
While pleased with the improved finishing of his players, Butler has bigger goals.
According to the first-time Manning Cup coach, he wants performances like these to lay the foundation for fostering an environment where top talent remains at the institution and does not leave for the traditional powers.
“It’ s a great experience to be back here and to give back to this school that has given so much to football and not been able to retain its players,” Butler told The Gleaner.
“So many players left the school and went to other schools. Now we are trying to retain the players and build the programme and let them be proud to wear the Mona crest on their chest.”
Butler was critical of the finishing in the 2-0 defeat and says that the work done in midweek contributed to their relentless display.
“I think what we did was we worked on our finishing during the week. We had many chances against KC that had we finished even 30 per cent, we would have won the game by five goals to two. So we worked on it during the week and we came up with 10 goals and double hat-tricks today, so we are very happy.”
In addition to Gordon and Pinnock’s display, Shawnafi Smith also contributed with a brace, including a curling strike from a short corner in the 35th minute, which looped over Papine goalkeeper Jahaile Forbes.
Papine High head coach Michael McIntosh said his team’s lack of experience showed against a quality opponent.
“We were kind of a bit out of our depth. Not much football experience. All in all we know that the opponents would come and overwhelm us, but we tried our best,” McIntosh said
Although confident about his team’s chances of making a deep run in this year’s tournament, Butler was quick to emphasise the importance of the overall youth development and the coaches’ roles in that process.
“One of the things I want to see, though, is the teams and the coaches being more unified in the development of the young players and, therefore, everybody will be playing a system that will be consistent with their genetics,” Butler said.