New Reggae Boyz see positives despite loss

Despite the national senior men's team's 4-1 defeat to the United States in their international friendly last Thursday in Austria, defender Ethan Pinnock and striker Jamal Lowe, the newest members of the squad, are optimistic about the potential of the team with more time to develop.

Pinnock who plays for English Championship side Brentford and Lowe who plies his trade for English Championship team Swansea City were among the many England-born players who made their international debuts, putting on the colours for the first time. The others included Reading's Liam Moore as well as Watford's Andre Gray.

Pinnock while ruing the lack of preparation time and familiarity with the team, take some positives from the game in spite of the loss.

"Every time you step out there, you [want] to try and win but considering the circumstances there were a lot of new faces in the squad," Pinnock said. "We haven't had much time to train or play together, [but] I thought there were some encouraging signs. Obviously, there are things we need to work on as well but as a starting point, I thought it was a decent showing."

Rushed acquisition

The team's preparations were hampered by the rushed acquisition of visas for the local contingent a week before the game which resulted in the cancellation of the local training camp.

"A lot of players have never played with each other before and it kind of showed towards the end because we haven't gelled that well yet. But we only had two days of training and one game and that will come," Lowe said

Watford's Adrian Mariappa who wore the captain's armband in his 50th international appearance said that getting a result considering limited preparation time was always going to be difficult.

"It was tough ask anyway with this big group of new players getting out together [with] only a couple of days training and you are playing against a tough side," Mariappa said. " I think they'll be a lot of positives we can take. Going into the future now looking to build on those positives and see where we can improve."