PANAMA CITY, Panama — Reggae Boyz Head Coach Paul Hall has admitted that his team simply lacked the requisite quality in Sunday’s Concacaf Final Round World Cup qualifying 2-3 loss to Panama inside the Estadio Rommel Fernandez.

The man who replaced Theodore Whitmore last December added that the team keeps putting itself in positions to win, but somehow finds a way to gift the opposition victory — a clear indication that the team needs to be better all across the pitch.

Jamaica took an early lead via the penalty spot from Michail Antonio, after Ravel Morrison was bundled over in the box with less than two minutes on the clock. But somehow the visitors conspired to concede an own goal two minutes from half-time.

Within six minutes of the restart, Panama went ahead through Eric Davis, who had a penalty saved by Andre Blake on the quarter hour. And substitute Azmahar Ariano extended the lead on 68 minutes before Andre Gray reduced the deficit two minutes form the end.

“We started the game well; I thought we really approached the game like we wanted to win it. We spoke to the players about what the occasion was, how much we wanted to put ourselves in a good position if we are going to control proceedings and give us the best chance and I thought we did that for the first little while in the game,” reflected Hall.

“We earned a penalty and went 1-0 up and then, against the run of play and out of character, we make a decision — which I’m really finding it hard to understand why we made a decision like that — and a little moment after that we are picking the ball out of the back of our net.”

Hall noted that the players were told to keep doing the same things during the half-time interval, but things didn’t go to plan as they fell behind early on, forcing him to change the shape of the team to a 3-4-1-2 formation (three defenders, four midfielders and one and two in attack), which he claimed gave the team a foothold in the contest.

“So, tactically, I thought we were there, but I think we just lacked quality in the end,” he stated bluntly.

“We’ve got to get better right across the park. We scored two goals away from home which we shouldn’t lose a game of football if you can score two away from home, I think, and you should be in a position where you should win.”

He again lamented the team’s defending, citing balls played to the back post which were headed across the face of goal.

“I think we need to learn from those mistakes and I don’t think we can keep making those mistakes. It happened to us twice against Mexico and then it happened to us tonight (Sunday) and I think we need to get better in those areas, so, yeah, quality needed all over the park, but there were good performances and we can’t ignore that, so we have to pay attention to that as well.”

The coach highlighted new boy Kevin Stewart, Morrison, Ethan Pinnock and Adrian Mariappa, as well as others, unnamed for special mention.

“I think you saw the quality of a Kevin Stewart, I think you saw Ravel Morrison was willing to work and really run around and you’re not really going to see that [often], so he really wanted to win and I was happy with his attitude.

“I thought Pinnock looked the part, I thought Mariappa again was good, there were some good performances all over, so it’s a shame because I wanted so much more for them and they tried hard tonight and it just didn’t happen.”

Sunday’s results across the 10th round of games all but eliminated Jamaica. In fact, the Boyz have slipped one place to seventh in the points standing on seven points, only ahead of Honduras on three.

Canada extended their lead atop the table with 22 points, four ahead of the US and Mexico on 18. Panama are next on 17, followed by Costa Rica, Jamaica’s next opponents on 13. El Salvador move ahead of Jamaica into sixth position on nine points.

For Hall, his team will continue to give its best, regardless of the ominous position that it is faced with.

“We go up against Costa Rica and we will try to win. It’s been an unsuccessful tour, but what has happened is we’ve learned some things about ourselves and some of the players that are playing for us and some of the staff.

“So going forward we are going to try to see if we can get three points off Costa Rica, but one of the sore points is that we’ve gone a goal up in both games and somehow managed to give the opposition the victory, so we have to have a look at that,” said Hall, who explained that he wanted to reflect properly on the game and measure what the team did and what it didn’t do well.

Concacaf Final Round World Cup Qualifying Points Standings

Teams P W D L GF GA GD P

Canada 10 6 4 0 17 5 12 22

USA 10 5 3 2 13 7 6 18

Mexico 10 5 3 2 13 8 5 18

Panama 10 5 2 3 14 12 2 17

Costa Rica 10 3 4 3 7 7 0 13

El Salvador 10 2 3 5 6 11 -5 9

Jamaica 10 1 4 5 9 15 -6 7

Honduras 10 0 3 7 5 19 -14 3