ST MARGARET’S, Trinidad and Tobago — Assistant coach Omar Edwards believes Jamaica’s Under-17 Reggae Boyz did a fair job in their 0-1 semi-final defeat to Cuba at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva on Friday night.

Brian Savigne scored Cuba’s winner in the 34th minute.

The defeat was the first for the Jamaicans in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) World Cup qualifying play-off series, which concludes today with Haiti and Cuba meeting in the championship match. Kick-off is at 6:30 pm (5:30 pm Jamaica time).

Jamaica will take on Curacao in the third-place play-off encounter at 4:00 pm (3:00 pm Jamaica time).

Earlier on Friday, Haiti had defeated Curacao 3-1 to secure their spot in the trophy match.

“We believe that the team did not perform badly overall considering we started the game without two of our key players in Kaheem Parris and Nickque Daley, as both players were nursing injuries, but some point in the game we managed to introduce Daley,” Edwards told the Jamaica Observer.

He, however, lamented the team’s defensive rendition, which saw ace Jamoi Topey being sent off for a second bookable offence in the 63rd minute.

Topey, who plays for Camperdown High School, was making his return to the team after being suspended for card accumulation.

“Defensively we did not do as well as we would normally do, and we have not been able to keep a clean sheet against this Cuba team, and that has been a disadvantage for us.”

Even though there was little creativity emerging from there, coach Omar Edwards was happy with the possession play.

“In the midfield we moved the ball a lot and we created a couple of chances upfront, but failed to capitalise… but it’s better to lose here than in the CONCACAF round,” he said.

Edwards, who also coaches at Red Stripe Premier League outfit Tivoli Gardens, said the last game, and indeed the tournament, has unveiled weaknesses and strengths in the team, which will have to be tackled ahead of the CONCACAF Championship slated for Panama next year.

“We have seen some weaknesses that we need to improve on and we have also seen some strengths that we will improve on as we go along,” Edwards noted.

The coach said even with the best players not on the field, the Young Boyz were still expected to come out victorious against a Cuba team they are seen to be better than.

“Cuba have won their group and we have observed them, but we saw ourselves as the better team than Cuba, so even though we didn’t field two of our better strikers, we still should have won the game.

“While the Cuba team is not bad overall, we were still expected to beat them and as a staff we are disappointed that we didn’t beat them to reach the final,” said Edwards.

All four semi-finalists and the best third-placed nation from the group phase — Surname — have secured places to the CONCACAF tournament.

The top-four emerging from the confederation championship will book spots to the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in India next August.