Staying true to his commitment to build for the future and give players a fair shot at making the final Fifa Women’s World Cup squad, senior Reggae Girlz Head Coach Lorne Donaldson is expected to bring in a number of young aspirants for an upcoming camp.

The five-day camp, which is part of preparations ahead of the global showpiece in Australia and New Zealand, is scheduled for January 11-16. It is indicative of Donaldson’s intentions to make the most of their build up to the July 20 to August 20 World Cup with hopes of having the best possible chance of progressing beyond the group stage.

The Girlz, who recently slipped two places to 44th in the Fifa rankings are drawn in a tough Group F alongside Brazil and France with a third opponent to come from next month’s 10-team intercontinental play-offs.

Donaldson’s hope is to find a good combination of youth and experience that can prove competitive on this their second-consecutive World Cup appearance.

“Obviously, we are trying to get the best possible players that we can get because we are looking at strengthening the team in every single area. That’s why we have so many young players coming into camp and we would like to see them do well because it would be nice to have them with us at the World Cup to have some kind of continuity,” Donaldson told the Jamaica Observer.

“This is not just about the World Cup, it is assembling a pool of players who are going to be very attractive in the future because not everybody is going to make this World Cup team, but at least we can have some continuity after this cycle.

“Because the squad is getting older now and there is no guarantee that some of the more senior players could stick around. We have to have young players who are ready to step in when that happens so we have to start preparing them from now and that’s a part of our objective. So this camp is looking at getting them ready and see what the competition is like for the future,” he added.

To bolster those ambitions, Donaldson and his assistants Xavier Gilbert and Ak Lakhani are seeking to tick a couple of tactical and technical boxes that they hope to perfect with the youthful players, in particular, ahead of the Cup of Nations tournament in Australia next month.

The Observer has learnt that the Girlz could join a South American and European outfit as well as the host nation after the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) accepted an invitation to the tournament scheduled to take place in Sydney within the Fifa window, February 13-25.

“It’s confirmed, we know who we’re playing. We don’t know what order we are playing them in, but I know who we are playing. They are currently working on the travelling logistics which is what we have to worry about, mostly because everything else is covered by the Australians,” said Donaldson, who is in the process of preparing his provisional World Cup squad for submission.

“There are players from this camp that will be in the Australia group, we just decided not to bring in the European-based players [for this camp] because they are actively playing and couldn’t get the time off because this camp is not a Fifa window.

“But the NWSL [National Women’s Soccer League] players are going into preseason a week after the camp so it’s the right time for them, and then some of the college players are still going to be out of school and they are not doing much football-wise with their school at present,” the tactician explained.

Despite the absence of Khadija “Bunny” Shaw and the likes, who ply their trade in parts of Europe, Havana Solaun, Satara Murray, Allyson Swaby, Olufolasade Adamolekun, and Mireya Grey, Cheyna Matthews, and Konya Plummer are some of those expected to join the youthful players, most of whom were a part of the Under-20 set up.

“We just want to see them with some other young players who are very good, so, as always, we are basically giving players a chance to select the group to go Australia.

“Hopefully, we can get in and get going immediately. It’s a very short camp, we are going to do a lot of playing just to look at players and see where they are and also use it to build the camaraderie in the team which is actually key,” Donaldson noted.

“The aim is to build a solid senior women’s football programme and to achieve that we have to build right from the bottom. That will in turn create fluency and a continuity. With this approach the players all grow up together, producing a bond,” he reasoned.

That said, Donaldson is hoping their next assignment after the February window will be an engagement in Europe at which point he should be closer to identifying his final 23.

Last year the Girlz visited Asian giants South Korea, where they lost 1-0 and later hosted Paraguay for a two-game friendly series. They won the first encounter 1-0 but lost the latter 2-1 to the South Americans.

“We already have a plan in place for when the Girlz end their season in May regarding how we build into June and July. We are talking to some people to see where we go from there going into Australia,” Donaldson said.

“We are trying to make sure that everything we do we keep it as positive as we can. It’s a lot of learning and teaching that’s going to happen moving forward, especially for the young players, because a lot them have ties to other countries. So whatever we do, we have to showcase ourselves in a proper way so when they choose they will want to play for Jamaica.

“I know we want to bring players from Jamaica up, but our structure has a long way to go. The [Jamaica Women’s] league has returned and they are playing football, but the big question is: What level are they playing at right now?” he ended.