On Sunday, Vere United lost their first game of the Jamaica Premier League campaign, going down 1-2 to Dunbeholden FC in the early morning kick-off at The University of the West Indies Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence.

The Clarendon-based team, which had a five-game unbeaten start to the season, scored just before the half-hour mark, but was unable to hold the lead, conceding two second-half goals — the second with just four minutes left in regulation time.

At the final whistle Vere Head Coach Donovan Duckie was left fuming about the 8:30 am start.

“Throughout my years of coaching, we have not even ever played a practice game at premier league level at this time. The preparation I thought was very difficult for us.

“We played 8:30 because of the COVID-19 rules and the laws of the land. The curfew is in effect today so we ended up playing 8:30, but yet still we had to break a curfew to avoid breaking the (3:00 pm) curfew.”

Duckie blasted the organisers for setting the game at that time, arguing it was not good for the development of the local game.

“What is important to us? The development of players, the development of the product, the league itself or is it that we are playing football in the boardroom?

“We have been accused of being an antagonist, sometimes not exhibiting a lot of professionalism, but the truth is not a sin and we cannot use the players as guinea pigs. We had to drive through curfew hours. We had to be awake from 4:00 am, it denied us sleep, we had to travel from Clarendon, players travelled from St Elizabeth, Linstead (St Catherine). I travelled from Trelawny, I travelled three and a half hours,” he raged.

He said the cirumctances took a toll on his team at the break.

“At half-time you did not want to see what happened in the changing room, almost six players vomited. To wake [up] that time to eat, to facilitate digestion, is going to be difficult, so we have to know what we are doing and the messages that we are sending.”

Duckie pointed to the way his team conceded both goals as evidence of the negative effects.

“I cannot speak anything about tactics. We got the go-ahead goal, but I thought in the second half we didn’t have any legs to finish the game. We conceded two goals we normally would not concede. It is unusual for a team to play between our lines so effectively two consecutive times and it resulted in two goals, so I thought we lost our footing at half-time and hence we never recovered.”

Vere United remain in second place in the league on 11 points, two behind leaders Portmore United with four games left to play in the regular season.

— Dwayne Richards