Hyde laments Under-20 Boyz" poor first-half display

BY HOWARD WALKER Observer senior reporter walkerh@jamaicaobserver.com

Tuesday, January 13, 2015    

ASSISTANT coach Lenworth Hyde says Jamaica’s Young Reggae Boyz will have to “wheel and come again” after their disappointing 0-1 defeat to Guatemala in their CONCACAF Under-20 Championship match on Sunday.

Jamaica are currently fourth in Group A with one point from two games after drawing 2-2 with Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) following a last-minute goal last Friday for a share of the points.

Panama lead the group with six points ahead of Trinidad and Tobago and Guatemala on four. The United States of America are on one point with Aruba point-less.

“I think we played more fluid, but we have a problem. We are not starting the games well. Most of our games are played in the second half and it is something that we will have to try and correct before the end of this tournament,” said Hyde.

“I think the reserves that came onto the field brought a little life in the team. It was more composed, we put down the ball and moved the ball around. We created some opportunities but that’s how it goes. We just have to wheel and come again and be ready for the next game,” said Hyde, head coach Theodore Whitmore’s assistant.

Jamaica started without the injured Michael Seaton, who is nursing a knee injury and he was badly missed upfront as he was replaced by Donja Smith.

The Young Reggae Boyz once again played poorly, especially in the first half when they conceded a 27th minute goal by Stheven Robles. The midfielder latched onto a through ball from Mauro Portillo, flicked the ball over the head of Malcolm Stewart and kicked past Nicholas Nelson in goal.

Jamaica should have fallen farther behind, but Nelson saved a penalty from Portillo in the 52nd minute and later in 63rd minute he would miraculously block a point-blank header from Mario Hernandez to keep Jamaica in the game.

But Jamaica failed to repeat their late heroics as they did in the previous game.

“We are very disappointed. We are playing at home and we wanted to win the game. But it’s not over yet. We just spoke to the players and told them to keep calm. I think they played well and it’s not over. We have three games to go so we will just have to try and keep them motivated and forget about this one and look on the positives out of this game,” said Hyde.

Meanwhile, Guatemala’s Argentine coach Albert Ruiz, praised his boys following a disciplined approach in securing three valuable points.

“The guys did really well. They came into the game thinking that it was going to be a hard game. Jamaica has very fast players and they are very strong, so physically they knew they couldn’t manage,” Ruiz pointed out.

Jamaica will now turn their attention to Panama tomorrow, while Guatemala take on Trinidad and Tobago. The US will tackle Aruba.

Teams:

Jamaica — Nicholas Nelson, Javaun Waugh (John Luca Levee 55th), Malcolm Stewart, Roberto Johnson, Shaquille Dyer, Allando Brown, Khallil Stewart, Junior Flemmings, Cardel Benbow (Martin Davis 73rd), Daniel Roberts (Shamar Nicholson 55th), Donja Smith.

Subs not used: Dane Chambers, Joel Cunningham, I’ishmale Currie, Rennico Clarke.

Booked: Smith (71st).

Guatemala: Nicholas Hagen, Kevin Grijalva, Cristian Jimenez, Christopher Ortiz (Mario Hernandez 30th), Kevin Bordon (Pablo Aguilar 60th), Mauro Portillo, Stheven Robles (Diego Alvarez 70th), Jose Ruiz Rumph, Carlos Estrada, Julio Ortiz, Mauricio Maltes.

Subs not used: Allen Yanes, Nicolas Samayoa, Luis De Leon, Diego Alvarez, Julio Ochoa, Pablo Aguilar, Benedicto Aldana, Jose Morales.

Booked: None

Referee: Marlon Mejia (El Salvador)

Assistant referees: Geovany Garcia (El Salvador), Philippe Briere (Canada)

Fourth Official: David Gantar (Canada)

Match Commissary: Hillaren Frederick (US Virgin Islands)

View the original article here

Hyde laments Under-20 Boyz" poor first-half display

Lloyd laments lack of preparation games, congested itineraries

CENTURION, South Africa (CMC) — West Indies chief selector Clive Lloyd has criticised the shortage of warm-up games on the current tour of South Africa, and says modern-day itineraries left little room for player development.

Lloyd, the outstanding former captain of the 1970s and 80s, was speaking ahead of Wednesday’s start of the opening Test, following the only warm-up match of the three-Test series.

“I’ve always wanted two four-day games in the tour. I’ve said that to the West Indies and the ICC. I think one game is not enough,” Lloyd told reporters here.

West Indies last week faced a South Africa Invitational XI in a three-day game, their only chance at match preparation for the series. Even then, rain washed out Friday’s final day, leaving the tourists with just two days of cricket.

In the time allowed, Marlon Samuels slammed an up tempo double hundred and opener Devon Smith, 174, as West Indies piled up 508 all out.

Left-arm seamer Sheldon Cotterell picked up a five-wicket haul as the hosts were shot out for 125.

But with the last day washout, several Windies batsmen and bowlers will now enter the first Test short of work.

“I think we should’ve had at least three games surrounding this Test match,” said Lloyd, credited for moulding the Windies side of the 70s and 80s into a winning unit.

“That way if someone is out of form they can go into a four-day game and get back into it. You can’t tell if a player is doing well in the nets.”

Lloyd, who has served as chairman of ICC’s cricket committee, was appointed chief selector in August, in a shake-up of the selection committee.

An experienced administrator, Lloyd said the way current tours were constituted left no room for focus on player development.

“Most of the tours are crammed. You’re playing 50 over games, T20s, it’s a lot of cricket and your body can only take so much. That’s why we’re seeing so many injuries. Nicely spaced out tours would be best for me,” he pointed out.

“It’s also about young players, because you want them to have a game and see what they have. We just jump into a country and then we’re gone.

“You can’t groom players anymore. You want to try out a few youngsters. I’m not saying you have to have 10 games, but just enough that young players will get a chance.”

View the original article here

Lloyd laments lack of preparation games, congested itineraries

Shaggy laments negative image of Ja

THE negative image of Jamaica, in particular Kingston, is affecting Shaggy’s ability to promote his charity concert to an international clientele.

‘Mr Boombastic’ told journalists at the weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange yesterday that just the mention of Kingston as the venue for the major event drives fear into many.“There are some people that I linked overseas, because we travel the world and buck up rich people all the while. Some of them I have invited down to Jamaica for the experience. The biggest problem for these people once they hear Kingston, they start [to] fret, as sad as that is,” he said.Shaggy said he tries to convince these persons that it is safe for them to attend, by explaining that he lives in Kingston and raises his three daughters in the city, but this does precious little to reverse the mindset.“I have a very wealthy person coming for the event who is sending an advance party. This person is worth millions and is sending an advance party to come down and set up everything first, including security. They don’t want any of our security, they want their own, just because they are scared of coming here. I have convinced him to come, but he’s taking every precaution — coming in on his boat, he’s not even staying in a hotel. He’s coming just for the show, but I’m gonna convince him to stay longer…,” Shaggy related.He accused Jamaicans of airing their ‘dirty laundry’ in public and, as a result, earning a bad reputation.He added that he feels more at risk in Trinidad than he feels here at home.“Mi a go deh fi years, and once I hit there, mi can’t walk there, can’t do dis, can’t do that. You always hear that Trinidad is the place where you come to carnival and party, while Jamaica is the place where everybody a kill everybody. I have been to many other places where the crime is heavier but, yet still, because we are the flagship of the Caribbean, and we are Brand Jamaica, and we are the ‘boasiest’ set a people in the world, wear the brightest colours and gwaan de baddest, so that sometimes puts us in a negative light,” he noted.The diamond-selling artiste further said that, for his part, he tries to put a positive spin on this negative outlook on Jamaica by launching his albums here, and even named his 2011 album Summer in Kingston.Shaggy autographs yesterday’s Observer Page 3 for Marsha Wright (left) which reported him being voted the sexiest Jamaican man by the newspaper’s women. Looking on is Michelle Daley. He was at the Observer for the weekly Monday Exchange.

");
var s = document.createElement("script");
s.type = "text/javascript";
s.src = "http://scripts.chitika.net/getads.js";
try {
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(s);
} catch(e) {
document.write(s.outerHTML);
}
}());

View the original article here

Shaggy laments negative image of Ja

Seabed Authority SG laments lack of awareness about entity

SECRETARY general of the International Seabed Authority Nii Odunton has expressed disappointment with the profile of the organisation charged with governing the international seafloor.

“People don’t know who we are or what we do. I don’t think that people outside of here even have a remote idea of what seabed mining is,” he complained at Wednesday’s sitting of the Assembly at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.The ISA was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) and, among other things, determines the legal, financial and environmental frameworks for exploiting the seabed for minerals. It has 135 members, including the European Union, and hosts general sessions once a year in Kingston where its secretariat is located. It has made progress, having issued 14 exploration contracts since 2001 — some of which are to progress to exploitation as early as 2016 — and it is still working on developing financial regimes to guide how much those who exploit for minerals are to pay member countries, as well as environmental baselines to ensure the protection of the marine environment.But it’s not common knowledge, which has resulted in little or no interest over the years from the wider society, including the media. Even among members States, attendance at meetings is poor.Wednesday, Odunton told the Jamaica Observer that he was less than pleased with the state of affairs and suggested that as a means of changing the tide, the secretariat established an ocean-mining museum on the ground floor of the headquarters building.“I am disappointed. That’s part of the reason I’m requesting to build a museum so that students at all levels of education can come… Even to make it part of the tourist attraction for Kingston,” he said.The museum, he reasoned, would add a visual dimension to the science.“I think visual makes it much easier to digest things. We’re talking about resources and where they are, but there are no pictures. It’s not very impressive,” he said, adding that the move would energise students with the vast possibilities of the seabed.Addressing the Assembly earlier, he said contractors have indicated a willingness to finance the establishment of the museum.Ambassador Odunton, a mining engineer from Ghana who is serving his second term at the helm of the Authority, listed other approaches that have potential to raise the public’s awareness of the seabed organisation. Among them were sensitisation programmes.“A couple of years ago we had a programme of sensitisation seminars. We held one here but we did not get the support; the turnout was quite low,” he said. “We would have to do something like that again.”Also, he said universities and other institutions of advanced learning need to introduce programmes related to the ocean such as designing, building or maintaining ships and other equipment; working with law enforcement, national security, or defence; transportation of cargo or passengers; and energy or mineral research, exploration and extraction.“I want to see a lot more of the developing country sites, particularly in places like Jamaica, get into subject matters related to the sea.“If you take a look at your exclusive economic zone, it’s several times the size of this island. All of the natural resources in your exclusive economic zone belong to you, [but] we have a number of issues; we haven’t counted what we actually have there; we don’t know what we have there [in order] to get to a point where we can actually exploit it for the benefit of Jamaica.”The size of Jamaica’s exclusive economic waters, said Odunton, is at least 22 times the size of the island.“If you begin to find out, even if it takes some time, what is actually in there and how we can begin to pull it out… In terms of the expertise required for counting, for developing, for production and all of that in the ocean, it’s a huge set of opportunities that should be investigated,” he told the Observer.Odunton added: “We also have to keep pushing a lot to ensure that Jamaicans are nominated to be part of our training programmes.”The ISA recently selected a Jamaican as an alternate for a contractor training programme in Germany. The secretary general said he was pleased with the development — even though the candidate will only participate if others drop out of the programme for any reason — because Jamaica doesn’t usually apply.He was quick to add, however, that Jamaica is not alone in overlooking the opportunities presented by the ISA.“I don’t want to give the impression that everything here is bad, but we have specific issues.“There’s a need, not only of the Seabed Authority but also the society, to promote a little bit, the riches that come from the sea and it’s all around us. It’s a little bit sad when you think of it,” the diplomat said ruefully.The headquarters of the International Seabed Authority in downtown, Kingston.ODUNTON… people don’t know who we are or what we do

View the original article here

Seabed Authority SG laments lack of awareness about entity

Seabed authority laments poor infrastructure

THE International Seabed Authority (ISA), the only United Nations Secretariat to be sited in a developing country, is less than pleased with the state of the headquarters, located on the same premises as the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

In the secretary-general’s report circulated during yesterday’s Assembly, the authority referenced “the age and poor condition of the air-conditioning units, elevators and windows of the headquarters building”, “flooding and poor lighting” of its parking garage, and “persistent problems with the audio systems used for interpreting” at the Jamaica Conference Centre.The ISA is meeting in Kingston for its 19th annual session.The issues were itemised under section V of the report, titled Relations with the host Government. There, too, the ISA spoke of the failure of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) to produce renovation projects, which the local agency said was the reason for increasing annual parking fees charged to the Authority.“In 2012, the proprietors of the parking garage attached to the headquarters building, the Urban Development Corporation, unexpectedly increased the annual fee charged to the Authority by 103 per cent, ostensibly because of planned renovation projects.“To date, no renovation has been undertaken, and poor lighting and the flooding of the garage during heavy rains continue to be a major safety and security concern for the Authority and its staff,” the ISA said.The UDC acknowledged receipt of the Jamaica Observer’s e-mail seeking comments and further information on the matter yesterday, but no answers were forthcoming up to late evening.On the subject of elevators and air conditioning system, the Authority conceded that between August 2011 and March 2012, the Government of Jamaica, in line with its agreed responsibilities, undertook some repairs.“[That] went some way in ameliorating some of the most serious defects,” the report said.“However, the long-standing problems relating to the inconsistent water supply and the poor performance of the air-conditioning units of the headquarters building remained unresolved as at May 2013.”Aside from the exterior, the ISA says it is disappointed with the layout and decor of the interior, for which it has responsibility.“The secretariat offices were last refurbished in 1999 and are now in a very poor state of decoration and repair,” it said, adding that things were in this state because of “budgetary constraints” for the “current biennium”.The Authority also has issues with the equipment at the conference centre, which it rents for the staging of its annual meetings.“Over the past several years, the meetings of the Authority have been adversely affected by persistent problems with the audio systems used for interpretation. The problems were especially disruptive during the 18th session and the meeting of the Legal and Technical Commission in February 2013,” the secretary- general’s report said.Asked how it responded to the claims, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which represents Jamaica at the ISA, declined to comment. It also declined answering how much was spent on the upgrades between 2011 and 2012, whether additional upgrading works were planned and the timeline for such, and the amount of dues the country pays to the Authority.The ISA seems to blame the situation on what it describes as a lack of a formal mechanism for the discussion of issues concerning the relationship between the host country and the Authority. As an example, it pointed to the UN Committee on Relations with the Host Country, which was established by a resolution of the General Assembly.The ISA has 164 member States, plus the European Union, and has an administrative budget of US$14 million for the 2013/2014 financial period.The premises of the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston on which the International Seabed Authority is located. (OBSERVER FILE PHOTO)

View the original article here

Seabed authority laments poor infrastructure