MONTEGO BAY, St James — Two coaches who have faced today’s finalists in the ISSA/Pepsi/Digicel daCosta Cup schoolboys’ competition are predicting a good game, but differ in their pick as to who will win.

Jeffrey Hewitt, coach of losing semi-finalists Garvey Maceo, has tipped Manchester High to take their first ever daCosta Cup title, but Munro College’s Hopeton Gilchrist thinks STETHS will win a close match.

Hewitt, who led Garvey Maceo to the rural area double in 2007, is in a good position to give an opinion of the two finalists after playing both in the previous two rounds.

Garvey Maceo beat Manchester 2-0 at Jamalco in the first set of games in the quarter-finals, but lost 1-3 to STETHS at Santa Cruzz in last weekend’s semi-finals.

Hewitt, who missed several days of training leading up to the semi-finals and the start of the game against STETHS after being hospitalised with a stomach problem, thinks Manchester are “technically and tactically one of the better teams in schoolboy football this season”.

He argues that in Jason Johnson Manchester have one of the better strikers in the competition, and he thinks if the Manchester defence can contain STETHS’ Deshorn Brown, they will have things easier.

Gilchrist, whose team beat STETHS twice in Zone E and Manchester in the first round of the Ben Francis Knock-Out, thinks Brown and Manchester goalkeeper Michael Parcells could be match winners.

While saying Manchester “is the best team I have seen passing the ball and running on and off the ball”, Gilchrist insists STETHS have “improved immensely since the Inter-zone and will have the psychological advantage, having beaten Manchester not too long ago”.