Audley Boyd
, Assistant Sport EditorIF IT were golf, then it would have been said that they missed the cut.
The field may not have been as large and though he was among those doing the cutting, the mood of national Under-23 coach Peter Cargill was not different from golfing hopefuls whose dreams of joining a title chasing field had vanished.
For months, a number of Jamaica's finest junior talent had trained and some had even participated in the team's advance to CONCACAF'S final round Olympic qualifying competition which kicks off tomorrow in Guadalajara, Mexico.
When the team left here yesterday morning though, only 18 were left to carry the battle in a four-nation group where only one team will qualify for this summer's Games in Athens, Greece.
"We made some tough decisions," an almost hurt sounding Cargill told The Gleaner. "We made some tough decisions leaving out people like Dawkins (Fabian), Wolfe (Wolry), Forrest (Weston), Hyde (Lenworth Jnr.)."
You could easily add to that list versatile midfielder Kevon Harris, an exceptional thinker, passer and central defender Alex Thomas, both of whom represented Jamaica at junior World Cup finals before.
"But those are decisions we had to make," asserted Cargill. "We've to make professional decisions, decisions we believe can help us to achieve our goal of getting to Greece."
Dawkins, through his goal against Argentina in the 2001 Under-20 World Cup Finals in the South American country, is the only Jamaican to have scored in a junior World Cup. Wolfe also played in that championship.
A MAJOR SURPRISE
Forrest has come on from his Norman Manley days to Waterhouse, but none have lit up the place like Hyde Jnr., whose exclusion is a major surprise given the way he has dominated the Premier League with his energy, dribbling and passing in a ravaging mode that suggested him as a strong candidate for any level national team now.
Cargill defended the choices made with "balance" in mind by himself and technical director Carl Brown, saying: "We think the players who have made the squad, they're the ones who can help us to achieve our goal."
Squad: Richard McCallum, Maurice Evans, Shavar Thomas, Bradley Thomas, Wayne Ellis, Desmond Breakenridge, Garfield Reid, Roland Dean, Demar Phillips, Keith Kelly, Tyrone Sawyers, Christopher Harvey, Khari Stephenson, Damian Williams, Omar Daley, Nicholas Addlery, Simeon Howell, Christopher Harvey.
