Head Coach Ludlow Bernard says Harbour View FC will take a measured approach to their title defence in the Jamaica Premier League this season.

The “Stars of the East” won the title with a strong knockout-rounds performance after finishing the preliminary round in sixth place last season. While Bernard knows that his team ran to the title without much attention, he says their rivals have since studied them and their style of play. It means he will be forced into tweaking his strategy for this season.

“We have to be better, we don’t have a choice. It’s going to be tougher,” Bernard told the Jamaica Observer.”

Being better, for Bernard, also concerns finding a style of play and managing it throughout the course of the season.

“One of the things that went well for us last season was our ability to be dynamic — changing systems according to the opposition, according to the games,” he said. “That’s something I instituted throughout the course of the last six or seven games last year, and it worked for us. But then again, you consider that I had a young team, trying to find the right blend and combinations. It was, indeed, a complicated task. Still not there yet but I think, mentally and psychologically, our players will be more energised for the challenge as we face it.”

Bernard is expecting a run similar to last season’s and says that a successful title defence will depend on the team pacing itself throughout the course of the season.

“We have realistic expectations,” he said. “Of course my function, primarily, is to prepare the team as best as possible and ensure that all individuals improve. Hopefully, when it all comes together we will have a better team at the end of the day.

“Other teams would have strengthened out there so we’ll have to take it game by game as to how we approach them and ensure at all times that we are staying with the leaders and [that] we are just in touch so that when the time comes, we’re ready to pounce. When the play-off comes around, when it’s time to change gear, we have to be ready.”

But Harbour View have strengthened too. Colorado Murray will be called on again this season to provide the goals. He will rely on the service provided by midfielder Demar Rose who joined in the summer as the team’s chief playmaker. He is familiar with working with Bernard, who coached him at Wolmer’s Boys’ School between 2010 and 2014.

Bernard has also brought in two young goalkeepers, Ricardo Palmer and David Martin, the latter who also played for Bernard as a schoolboy at Kingston College last season. They are expected to provide competition for senior goalkeepers Amal Knight and Anthony Bennett.

Harbour View get their campaign started against the newly promoted Chapelton Maroons at the Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex at 5 pm today.