SAINTE-LUCE, Martinique — Coach Theodore Whitmore is not bothered by the fact that two senior players have been ruled out of today’s final preliminary-round match against Guyana after receiving their second cautions of the tournament.

Captain and defender Shavar Thomas was booked in the 59th minute for a blocking foul and midfielder Rodolph Austin cautioned in the 76th against Guadeloupe on Monday.

The duo was also among four Jamaicans booked in the first game against Antigua and Barbuda.

Under tournament rules, any player receiving a second yellow card caution at any stage of the competition must serve a one-match suspension the next game.

The Reggae Boyz duly blanked Guadeloupe 2-0 in the second game of Group I at the Riviere Pilote Sports Complex on Monday night to book their place in the semi-finals of the 2010 Digicel Caribbean Cup Finals.

Shaun Francis, who plays for the Columbus Crew in the US Major League Soccer, opened the scoring with his first international goal in the 53rd minute, before another US-based star, Ryan Johnson of the San Jose Earthquakes, made the game safe in time added.

The win also qualified Jamaica for next summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.

In Monday night’s first game, Antigua and Barbuda rebounded from their loss to Jamaica to edge Guyana 1-0 on Gayson Gregory’s 69th minute strike.

Jamaica lead with a perfect six points, ahead of Antigua and Barbuda on three, and Guadeloupe and Guyana on one point each.

“We took 20 players to the tournament and we want to use them, so we don’t want to hold back on anything,” Whitmore told the media in a post game interview.

“The worst case scenario is that the replacements will just have to step up and do a job for us.”

The suspensions aside, Whitmore must also skilfully manoeuvre the use of central defender Adrian Reid, who was also cautioned in the first game, and Troy Smith, who was booked as a second half substitute on Monday night.

Added to that his medical staff is meticulous in its handling ace striker Omar Cummings, who is bothered by a quad problem, and Johnson appears in need of match fitness, after having been knocked out of the MLS play-offs some weeks ago.

“We have the final game come Wednesday night and again we have to look at a number of changes. We have the skipper Shavar Thomas out and Rodolph Austin out and we will give the other players a chance to show what they have, so they have a decent opportunity and we don’t want to go into the last game and take anything for granted, we want to go out there and give a good performance and win the last game as well,” Whitmore said.

“Ryan (Johnson) was playing for the first time in a long while, so hopefully he plays 90 minutes on Wednesday to get back his match fitness, so we will be strong going into the semi-finals,” Whitmore offered.

On Monday night Guadeloupe’s coach made four changes to their starting side, but Jamaica proved dominant without having anything tangible to show for their efforts, but Whitmore rightfully found room for criticisms.

“I think it was a decent performance from the team, the first half of the game I think the final passes at times we over hit the ball, we tried to overpass in the final third. I didn’t think we were creative, we just left everything up to Dane Richards and Luton Shelton, we weren’t playing as a team in the final third, but I think in the second half we could see a big difference, we were more organised and the guys played to instructions,” he conceded.

The coach was also unhappy with the manner in which his players gave away the ball cheaply, a disease he is yet to find the cure for.

“Yes, it is something we want to improve on, it is something we’ve been working on for months and to be honest it is something we tried to sit and discuss as a technical staff, but it is just not happening, but I guess we have time and we just have to take it one game at a time.”