Despite suffering their heaviest defeat of the season when they were soundly beaten 8-0 by Kingston College (KC) in the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup at the Stadium East Field on Monday, Waterford High did not leave the field in a downtrodden mood.

Waterford went into the encounter with a lot of self-belief and expectations that they could take something off of the reigning champions and were able to match wits for exactly half hour before their defence line was breach. They conceded two more goals in the first half and five in the second when they had to replace their first-string and second-string goalkeepers due to injuries.

Their Head Coach Kevin Reid bemoaned that fact that they had to end yet another game without the benefit of their best goalkeeper.

“We were playing against a quality team, and we lost our first-string goalkeeper again, just like in the St George’s College game, our second-string keeper, we lost him also, so with that the guys got demotivated. It’s very hard to really motivate a team like Waterford that has no experience,” he said.

Reid promised to be better prepared for the champions when they meet again on home turf next week.

“We are not going to let this get the better of us. We are going to go back and do what we have to do.

“We have played Kingston College, we know what they can do, so we will be preparing for them the next time around,” he vowed.

With the first round of the competition fast coming to a close, Reid is fully aware of exactly what is required to make it to the second round and is adamant they, Waterford High, will be able to do so.

“We still have a good chance of going through, we just have to get some good points in the next three games and hopefully that will bring us right through.”

He promised that the thorough beating at the hands of the champions would not be the death knell for his boys.

“Even though we were defeated badly today [Monday], we are not going to let that get the better of us. We are going to still push on, we are going to still fight, we are not going to give up,” he insisted.

Waterford High will have Ardenne High, Meadowbrook and Kingston College to play to complete their first-round campaign.

— Dwayne Richards