WE are pleased that the Reggae Boyz, made up mostly of local-based players, gave a good account of themselves in their drawn exhibition game against powerful English club Tottenham Hotspurs in The Bahamas on Thursday night.

However, this newspaper is less than pleased with other aspects of the trip to The Bahamas. We suspect we are not alone in that regard.

The Jamaican squad was originally in The Bahamas for a 12-day camp ahead of three absolutely crucial World Cup qualifying games in early June. As originally scheduled, the camp should have included two games — the first against Spurs on Thursday night, and the second for May 31 against The Bahamas national team.

Now we hear that the second game has been scrapped and the Jamaica squad will return home seven days earlier than planned. We are left to think that the arrangements weren’t properly tied down ahead of the trip. That’s not good enough if we are truly serious about the World Cup qualifying campaign.

Let’s not forget the challenge ahead of the Reggae Boyz.

With only two points, and sitting at the bottom of the CONCACAF Group of Six after three games, they must seek to win at least one those three games in early June, while seeking to avoid defeat in the other two, in order to remain confident of a place at next year’s FIFA World Cup Finals in Brazil.

Just as a reminder, Jamaica are up against Mexico on June 4 at the National Stadium, then the USA three days later at the same venue before travelling to Honduras for another qualifier on June 11. At the end of this Hexagonal Round the top three teams will have qualified for Brazil with the fourth-placed up against the winner of the Oceania Group for the last coveted spot.

It will be very, very tough. Recognition of that reality, we believe, is the reason the Jamaica Football Federation seized the opportunity to organise this camp in The Bahamas.

It was presumably intended to help the players to gel better as a team ahead of the qualifying games next month, especially since in their last two qualifiers against Panama and Costa Rica, the Reggae Boyz — then made up mostly of overseas professionals — looked to be extremely lacking in cohesiveness and team work.

All of which brings us to another sore point.

With the exception of Mr Jermaine Johnson, who will sit out the June 4 game due to yellow-card suspension, and who came on as a second-half substitute, the team that faced Tottenham on Thursday night had no Britain-based players. This was so, although we suspect that head coach Mr Theodore Whitmore will again be heavily dependent on those players, come early next month. We note that the England-based Mr Rodolph Austin, who is nursing a groin problem, spent the evening on the substitute’s bench as a precautionary measure.

We recognise that the very tough professional season in England has only just ended and players will be tired and desirous of rest. However, we note that Tottenham came to The Bahamas with their strongest team, including a few of the big names in world football.

If they could be with Tottenham at the end of the English season, surely our Britain-based professionals, who we presume are fervently hoping to help the Reggae Boyz to Brazil next year, could also have been in The Bahamas. We await a proper explanation.

We assume that our overseas pros will be arriving in Jamaica over the next few days ahead of those assignments in early June. Hopefully, there will be time and opportunity for Mr Whitmore and his staff to have the players build a positive team spirit with next month’s decisive encounters in mind.

Crucially, it is important for all concerned to take careful stock of what has happened here. Shambolic planning on the part of administrators and an absence of commitment from individual players can’t be tolerated if the Reggae Boyz are to make it to Brazil 2014.