CATHERINE HALL, St James — Jourdaine Fletcher and debutant Kemar Beckford scored their first goals for the senior men’s team to lead the Reggae Boyz to a 2-0 win over Bermuda in a friendly international at the Montego Bay Sports Complex on Wednesday in a game that both head coaches said they were pleased with.

A fair-sized crowd showed up for the game that was played in the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19) threat to Jamaica as the island confirmed its first cases.

Fletcher, who had lost his place in the team, scored the opener in the 42nd minute, while his Mt Pleasant FA teammate Beckford lashed home the second goal in the 79th minute as Jamaica cruised to a fourth-straight win over Bermuda since 1992.

Both teams used the game as preparation for upcoming important fixtures as Jamaica look to the the start of the Concacaf World Cup qualification, while Bermuda has a play-off game after being knocked out of League A of the Concacaf Nations League.

Jamaica Head Coach Theodore “Tappa” Whitmore, who left most of the game coaching to his assistant Jerome Waite, told the Jamaica Observer after the game that despite the less than adequate physical conditioning of some of the players, he thought the team did well.

“We got a clean sheet for one, [despite] the players not [being] in the best of physical condition, but gave a good account of themselves,” he said.

Whitmore admitted that while the preparation leading up to the game could have been better, “this is still a work in progress”.

“There is lot of work to be done; lots of fixing that still needs to be done going into the World Cup qualifiers and that is where my focus and concern are at the moment,” he noted.

There were some good individual performances from the local team and Whitmore singled out Beckford for praise.

“He was all over the park and for me he was the man of the match…we had a few others who did well, but we can’t use one game to judge them and we need more practice games like these for the players to showcase their skills,” he argued.

Kyle Lightbourne, the Bermuda coach, thought his mostly local-based team did well against Jamaicans despite the missed chances and questionable defending.

“I thought it was a pretty even game, but Jamaica obviously won as they took their opportunities…I thought we gifted them two opportunities when we had possession of the ball, especially the second goal when we should have put the ball in the box, but decided to take a short free kick and they counter attacked on us and scored.” Lightbourne lamented.

The game got off to a slow start with both teams content to passing the ball around when they had possession, but Peter-Lee Vassell came close to opening the scores in the sixth minute but his path was blocked and he was forced wide.

Fletcher, who missed by inches in the 21st minute when he pulled a shot just wide of the far post from the right flank, scored the opener from a more central position when his left footer from the top of the 18-yard area rolled past the Bermudan goalkeeper.

With time running out in the game, Kemal Malcolm, who came on as a second-half substitute, led a quick counter-attack down the left flank, and after getting by two defenders, crossed the ball to the penalty area where Beckford met it with the inside of his right boot steering it past the hapless Bell.

Malcolm could have scored his own goal in the 89th minute, but after getting past two Bermudan defenders, put his shot wide.

— Paul Reid