MONTERREY, Mexico — Reggae Girlz Head Coach Lorne Donaldson said he saw positives in Jamaica’s 5-0 hammering on Thursday at the hands of the USA that left his team stuttering in Group A of the Concacaf Women’s Championship.

Thursday’s matchup was a top-of-the-table fixture, but the game was far from that as the Americans showed why they are world champions with a ruthless display of attacking football that totally destroyed the Reggae Girlz.

“We gave up two early goals and we didn’t defend very well… if you give up two early goals against the USA, I haven’t really seen a team come back [from that],” said Donaldson.

He continued: “It was a tough game. The US played very well and we didn’t play well. So, if the US is playing well and we are not on top of our game, you asking for trouble and we saw the result.”

Donaldson also lamented the unavailability of a couple of players due to documentation issues.

“It affects the team. You have two good players with us sitting out and we thought they should have their paperwork done. But whatever the reason is, that politics, and I won’t get into it. Hopefully, we can at least get one of them,” said Donaldson.

“The reason why they are here is because, as a coach, we think, this is gonna be OK, they should get it. But that’s not happening,” he emphasised.

“Something is missing in the link, but it’s there at the fingertip and we think it should have been done and it has been going on for a while. I came in late in that process, and from what I heard, a letter here and a letter there, and everything should have been good. But it still not and I can’t comment more on that,” he added.

Other players, he said, are unavailable for varying reasons.

“We actually pulled some players out trying to save some legs, but we [are] missing a couple of players now from passport or visa, whatever it is and couple people with couple knocks,” he pointed out.

“So, obviously we have to do what we have to do, we still had to play the game. We look very tired last night, so maybe some part of our fitness caught up with us, but hopefully, we can push on now,” said Donaldson.

The game plan on Thursday came under scrutiny, with one side of the argument suggesting Jamaica should have gone into an ultra-defensive mode after the team was trailing 0-2 at half-time.

“At 2-0 you are still talking about goal differential, but we were hoping to get one back or something. We did pull a forward in Jody Brown and Bunny, so we did pull some players,” he said.

He continued: “We can second guess now, but we still had to play the game and you [are] playing the world champion who were on top of their game.”

But it was not all gloom for Jamaica as Coach Donaldson saw some positives going forward.

“There are always positives from games whether you win or lose, especially when we lose…we know there are stuff that we can do better,” he explained.

“These are like practice games to us, so some of the stuff we are going through are growing pains because we didn’t have games to fix them and do all that kind of stuff.

“Coaching is a weird thing and sometimes you have to learn how to fly. Again, we played the best team in the world and they are on top of their game. Hopefully, we learn some stuff from this game that we can take to the next game and try to get a result,” Donaldson ended.