St Mary’s coach rues vaccine hesitancy for squad depletion

After watching his team concede their 39th goal in just their second ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup Group C game, St Mary's College head coach Gregory Walters is bemoaning the absence of players from his squad through vaccination hesitancy.

St Mary's lost 26-0 to St Catherine High at Stadium East yesterday, five days after losing their opener 13-0 to Wolmer's Boys.

Although St Mary's have a history of struggling in this competition, Walters says that perhaps they would have been more competitive against St Catherine, had they had a better preseason and all players in his plans available.

"One of the challenges is, really and truly, to get the players out, to come to training," Walters said. "With [coronavirus], some of the players didn't get vaccinated, so it's kinda hard based on the school and the parenting. Some parents don't want their children to take the vaccine, while some made the decision, but we have to work with what we have.

"As the coach, I won't blame any players for what happened but I want to see them improve and I will try my best as we go along."

That improvement must also include work on their discipline.

Goalkeeper Tejuani Gilbert was sent off in the 10th minute after arguing with the referee after his teammate was whistled for a foul.

"Gimme di red card, red card mi den," Gilbert shouted at the referee before his dismissal.

Walters, who was also shown the red card in the 24th minute for debating the decision to award a penalty, says goalkeeping is one of the team's main issues.

"They've just been training for about two weeks now; they lost their focus," he said. "We have a problem with goalkeeping but, football, that's the way it goes. We have to just rebuild. It's a learning process for the youngsters, sometimes their egos get ahead of them."

Joel Palmer and Nickyle Ellis both scored six times for St Catherine, while Jevin Parkinson had four goals and Ellis Guscott, three, in a game where the referee was seen adjusting his match card in frustration a number of times as he found it challenging to fit all names.

St Mary's face Papine, who lost 10-0 to Mona High School, in their next game on Tuesday. St Catherine meet Mona a day later.