Like it has been since the inception of the All-Island Schoolboy Football Knockout competition, the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/Digicel Champions Cup will have no repeat champion as holders Kingston College (KC) were dethroned when they went down 0-2 to Clarendon College in the semi-finals on Saturday.

Two late goals sent the daCosta Cup champions back to the final for a second time at the expense of the title holders.

A visibly upset Ludlow Bernard was not in the mood to hold back as he summed up the reasons why his team lost the match.

“They capitalised on an error that we made and they won. We need to understand that, in this game, we need to be very tight and mean in defence. That is something that I had asked for all season and that has been working for us.”

He said that he had been depending on his defenders being on top of their game to see them past Clarendon College.

“We knew that probably we would have some issues in other parts of the pitch, but we were depending on our defence to really bail us out.”

But Bernard is not prepared to throw in the towel on the entire season and is looking for a quick response from his boys in their next game.

“I am disappointed that we didn’t get the result that we wanted, but it’s not the end of the [season]. There are other major titles to be won and probably this result will serve as a stepping stone going into the next game.”

Having spent many, many years on the sidelines, Bernard has seen it all before, and he is hoping that his boys will learn quickly from the experience on Saturday.

“I have been down this road before. I am basically mentally prepared for these kinds of activities. This is something that the boys will have to learn and understand and, hopefully, probably it would have been the best time that something like this to transpire.”

The KC head coach revealed that some of his players were carrying injuries, which definitely affected the performance of the team.

“We also have some injury concerns, which I think hampered us seriously out there. We didn’t really make an issue of it, but it severely affected us to the extent that there was a lot of immobility.”

Apart from the physical recovery required for the Manning Cup semi-final on Tuesday, the mental recovery will be just as important for KC.

“We need to get back the confidence of the boys because I think they have been shattered by [the loss]. The thankful thing is that we have a few days to get back. But we will do what is necessary to get everybody up and running for the next game,” Bernard promised.

— Dwayne Richards