Not yet! - CC waiting on Olivier Shield title to celebrate

Yesterday, 2019 daCosta Cup champion Clarendon College kept their celebrations at the school grounds in Chapelton under wraps and was far less elaborate than the reception they had for last year's winning team.

However, the man tasked with setting the tone for the celebrations, manager Richard Palmer said the purpose of keeping celebrations low key is to ensure that the players remain focus ahead of the Olivier Shield final against Jamaica College at the National Stadium on Saturday.

Palmer said the aim is to win the Olivier Shield trophy, the symbol of schoolboy football supremacy, and prove they have the best schoolboy football team in the island for 2019.

But to do that, he thinks it's important not to celebrate and keep their focus until they have completed the job this season.

"It's an eerie feeling winning back-to-back titles. It's a momentous occasion as this is what we set out to achieve, so we aren't even surprised (winning daCosta Cup). But after the regular league, you have the Champions League, so this is the (our) Champions League. But why celebrate? and we have a bigger trophy to play for. The bigger occasion is down the road (Saturday)," he told STAR Sports.

"We definitely want to show the world we are the best team in Jamaica and that's the whole aim and ambition. We want to be kings of schoolboy football and to be kings of schoolboy football you have to maintain a certain focus to remain as king. So it is the reason we didn't do all these things. We don't celebrate before we are victorious, after the victory we will celebrate."

Celebrations at the school got under way at approximately 8 a.m., yesterday morning, however, student spent the majority of the morning dancing excitedly to music being played over the PA system inside the Stuart Hall (auditorium).

Last year the lengthy devotion that was used to honour and recognise the team, players, coaches and managers was short-lived and only lasted little more than 20 minutes.

five years drought broken

After the school reclaimed the daCosta Cup title last season after five years without the trophy, celebrations were a lot bigger and the devotion lasted more than an hour. A number of speakers from the team and school community delivered speeches to an excited student population, before going on a march through a number of adjoining communities before returning to the Chapelton main square for their final stop.

Although the school still went on to beat Kingston College for the Olivier Sheild title to become the first rural school to win the title outright since 1988, Palmer said the approach has changed this year and they decided to keep this focus until they have completed their final game of the season at the stadium on Saturday.

"The mindset is key and our mindset is why we now look (serious) like this. But that is the difference between a winner and a loser, the mindset. So we are keeping ours, we haven't won it yet, so we are keeping the focus to get the victory," he said.