Reggae Boyz assistant coach Bradley Stewart (left) and head coach Theodore Whitmore. - file

GIVEN the ages of several senior players and the fact that the Reggae Boyz will not be participating in any major tournament before another two years, assistant coach Bradley Stewart believes the time is ripe to start incorporating new players into the national senior football team.

"My own view, and I don't want to speak out of turn, is that, given the status of some of the players and their age, you have to inject fresh blood into whatever games we are able to organise," Stewart explained, while pointing the way forward for the Boyz, following confirmation of their first-round elimination from the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which is continuing in the United States.

The majority of starting players in the team are either nearing or over 30 years.

"Expose some more players and, hopefully, prepare a set that you know will be there for the next World Cup qualifiers for the nation," Stewart pointed out.

Sanctioning players

Off the field, the team began and ended the Gold Cup sanctioning players: two for missing a flight out of Jamaica as they left for the tournament and, at the very end, one player was sent home for what the coaching staff deemed "disruptive behaviour."

Asked if such patterns of behaviour seriously impacted on the team's failures, Stewart said: "I don't know that players at this level take off-the-field (matters) onto the pitch. I would rather look at a player's performance over a period of time than judge him on the basis of one match.

"I think that is what the coach has done, he has been judging the players to see whether or not the inconsistencies are there," Stewart explained. "I think once he determines whether a player is committed or not, he is likely to take actions based on his own determinations."

Qualification for the 2014 World Cup, at the confederation stage, should begin in the first half of that year with the first-tier Caribbean zone series.

Before that though, another edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup would have returned, the 11th staging in 2011.

Jamaica unceremoniously bowed out of this year's championship after winning once and losing two of their preliminary round fixtures. They lost 0-1 to Canada and Costa Rica in their opening matches, before beating El Salvador 1-0 in their final game. The three points left them third in Group A.

Quarter-finals

There were three four-team groups contesting the preliminaries and eight of the teams advanced to the quarter-finals. These included the top two in each zone, plus the top two third-place teams.

As Jamaica's group was played a day earlier than any of the other groups, the Reggae Boyz were the first to have been decided as third-place finishers.

However, the other teams in the remaining groups which stood a chance to place third, closed out their deal with winning results that qualified them automatically by lifting them to four points, which superseded Jamaica's tally.

Their last hope rested on a Nicaragua victory over Panama on Sunday. The Jamaicans were actually training, while getting updates, at the Florida International University on Sunday, and, as the session wound down, so did their chances as the Panamanians scored in a flurry, delivering a 4-0 whipping.

Stewart called the elimination disappointing.

"I'm totally disappointed that we had to be returning home at this stage. To be knocked out at the first stage of any competition is very heart rending," he said, pointing to the "... quality of the players we have on tour."

The team wasted a number of clear scoring chances as it clearly dominated all their opponents throughout the championship and Stewart said that was the major letdown.

"Finishing, finishing; meaning, creating opportunities and not scoring on a high percentage of those opportunities created during this tournament," he responded when asked about their biggest problem.

"The first game against Canada we had like 10, 12 opportunities. Canada had two or three opportunities ... the kid that scored had one shot on goal. In the second game, we lost one-love again, the same situation. We just keep reproducing the same thing where we create chances but gave up a soft goal, because it meant that players weren't thinking as they should at that particular stage of the game."