Harbour View Head Coach Ludlow Bernard has promised they will rebound after being condemned to their first defeat of the shortened Jamaica Premier League (JPL) season powered by Digicel.

The “Stars of the East” were clipped 2-3 by surprise package Vere United in an exciting battle of the unbeaten teams at The University of the West Indies (UWI)/Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence on Saturday.

Despite the loss, Harbour View remain in third position on eight points, but Bernard wants more to ensure that they are either in the play-off or will earn one of the two automatic spots to the semi-finals.

“I bring this loss to some amount of naivety and some of it is inexperience. The last goal for me was a dagger. I think it was absolute carelessness taking place but as I said, these are some of the things that these guys will have to learn and we will rebound,” Bernard said.

“I think we are in a good position, but we still want to press for the top spot. We know the top six is it, but I think we are good enough to be in the first two, so we will see how the next couple of games go,” he added.

Both teams traded punches before Vere United found the knockout punch to claim all three points late in the five-goal thriller that was certainly worth watching.

Bernard made changes to the midfield in anticipation of the matchup, including reverting to Lovel Palmer in central defence.

“This was basically the same midfield that played against Mount Pleasant at the Stadium East field. I think it was one of our best games, so it probably wasn’t difficult for me to make that decision and based on training during the course of the week, we really anticipated quite a bit,” he shared.

The introduction of Cristojaye Daley at the resumption impacted the game significantly, as he produced two spectacular goals to draw Harbour View level at 1-1 and 2-2 in the space of four minutes.

“We knew it was always going to be a toss up with young Daley, but at half-time I really didn’t hesitate. He came on and made a big impact and that’s what we needed,” Bernard ended.

— Dwayne Richards