MONTEGO BAY, St James – Winfried Schaefer, head coach of Jamaica’s senior men’s football team, hailed his senior players after they guided Jamaica to a 2-0 victory over Haiti in their top-of-the-table Group G clash at the CFU Men’s Caribbean Cup here on Sunday night.

With the victory, Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz topped the group with seven points from three games and booked their place in today’s final against perennial Caribbean rivals Trinidad and Tobago. The result also ensured Jamaica a place in next year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States, and another victory tonight at the Montego Bay Sports Complex would also see them gaining an automatic berth to the 2016 Copa America Centenario, also to be played in the United States.

“Thanks to our experienced players, McAnuff (Jobi), Rodolph Austin, Watson (Je-Vaughn), Taylor (Jermaine), they were fantastic, they are our leaders and I’m very happy these players came to us,” beamed Schaefer during the post-game press conference.

However, the coach was quick to add that the fast and furious nature of the shortened tournament is taking a serious toll on the players. “Everybody went on their limit (gave of their all) and the players in the locker room are tired (now),” he added.

In arguably their best first 45 minutes since Schaefer assumed responsibility of the team last year, the 113th-ranked Boyz, behind great Montego Bay support, exposed yet again the mockery that is the FIFA rankings, when they blew away the 93rd-ranked Haitians and condemned them to defeat inside 20 blistering minutes.

The Reggae Boyz had already made fools of the rankings by thrashing the 70th-ranked Antigua and Barbuda 3-0 two days earlier.

Derby County’s Simon Dawkins opened the score in the 13th minute with a delightful chip over goalkeeper Jhony Placide from about 12 yards inside the penalty area, after breaking from midway his half of the pitch and combining beautifully with strike partner Darren Mattocks, who did well to provide the final pass.

And seven minutes later captain Austin stole possession off a Haitian player deep inside the final third and in a flash he served up a sumptuous offering for Mattocks, and the Vancouver Whitecaps frontman needed no second chance to notch his third goal of the competition.

Austin, the marauding linkman, then tested Placide with a rasping free kick which he could only punch away. And though Haiti’s Sebastien Thuriere thumped a fierce pile-driver goalward on the half-hour mark, which skimmed the horizontal on its way over, the French-speaking Haitians were clearly overwhelmed.

The Boyz reacted immediately and almost struck another, as in possibly their best offensive move of the night, they carved open a huge gap in the Haitian defence through neat and intricate combination play by McAnuff, Dawkins and Mattocks from the left hand side of the pitch, which ended with Mattocks’ left-footed effort scraping the outside of Placide’s left-hand post.

Though it did not register on the score sheet, the crowd on hand showed its appreciation with a round of applause.

Schaefer was obviously happy with his lads’ effort in the first half. “The first half (went) very well and (we) scored two very good goals and with a bit more luck we could have scored more… our players went out to win the match,” he said.

“Haiti is not a small team, Haiti is a very good team and I want to congratulate them, but big compliment to our team. I am very happy and everybody is happy, but the tournament is not finished, we have one match more,” he noted.

However, he was quick to note that the must-win situation worked in favour of his team, as opposed to the Haitians, who needed only a draw to advance to the final against Trinidad and Tobago.

“First of all the situation for us, I think, was better. We had to win, while Haiti lose and go down. Haiti wanted a draw, that would be good enough for them, but I know in their heads it was a problem. For us it was the mentality, we knew when we go 100 per cent with good discipline we can win and we won,” he added.

But if the first half was something to savour, then the second half was something to forget in a hurry, because the Boyz were nowhere near to that level, after the 15-minute break.

They appeared dead on their legs and collectively there wasn’t the desire to kill the game off with more goals. In fact, Haiti probed more, but lacked the quality to get behind the Jamaican defence, and even when El Salvadorean referee Joel Aguilar gifted them a phantom penalty a minute from full time, Jamaican goalkeeper, the acrobatic Andre Blake of the Philadelphia Union, ensured justice was done when he threw himself brilliantly to his right to firmly palm away Emmanuel Sarki’s spot kick.

The call was made when left wingback Kemar Lawrence was clearly shoved to the ground by an attacker, which resulted in the Harbour View defender falling on top of the ball inside his area.

Still, Dawkins had struck the upright moments earlier from an acute angle in one of the few forays by the hosts.

Schaefer thought the Boyz played too deep in the second half, but Austin figured the players executed poorly when the Haitians pushed numbers in attack.

“I think it was just one of those games when a team (Haiti) is chasing they are going to take more risks, so we just had to defend tight as a unit and that’s what we did. As I said it was just a game that we had to win to go to the final, that was the most important thing because it took a lot of energy in the first half, but what we should have done was get someone wide on the wings and hit them on the counter, but we were trying to pass the ball out from the back and it wasn’t on. We should have played behind them, but we are happy to be in the final and that’s the important thing, but we could have done better.”

Meanwhile, Haiti’s French coach Marc Collat credited the Boyz as deserving of victory.

“In terms of the match we had difficulties in the first half, but we did much better in the second half and fortunately we were able to come forward, we couldn’t get the quick goal that we were looking for and then we got the penalty, but we didn’t score and that was that,” he said through an interpreter.