HAVING accepted accountability for the team’s opening Cup of Nations loss, Head Coach Lorne Donaldson believes his senior Reggae Girlz are now refocused and in a better frame of mind to put in an improved performance against Czech Republic.

The two up-and-coming nations in women’s football will lock horns for the first time in their history today at the Commbank Stadium in Sydney, Australia, as they seek to regain some momentum ahead of the final round of fixtures on February 22.

Kick-off is 10:50 pm Jamaica time.

The Girlz were unable to produce anything offensively and simultaneously looked pretty poor on defence as well in their 0-3 loss to Spain, while Czech Republic were also blanked 0-4 by host Australia on Thursday.

Though 28th-ranked Czech Republic failed to qualify for this summer’s Fifa Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, this contest still holds some significance in shaping their programme.

As such, Donaldson and his 44th-ranked Girlz, who are preparing for their second-consecutive appearance at the global showpiece, should be wary of the challenge to come.

In fact, Czech Republic comes into the Cup of Nations tournament with the better record on paper. They won three of their last five games, while the Jamaicans lost 1-2 to Paraguay at the end of the year and entered the tournament with two wins in their last five contests.

“We played Spain and they were very good while we were no good to say the least, but we will make the adjustments and hopefully we will be better,” Donaldson said.

“We haven’t seen the Czech Republic team, but we know they are a good unit and as I said before, we came into this tournament expecting to play three tough games and that hasn’t changed. So for sure, we won’t be taking them lightly and so we are going to look back at the footage of their game [against Australia] and do what we need to do,” he told the Jamaica Observer ahead of a training session on Friday.

Captain Petra Bertholdová, who has 103 caps for her country, is expected to lead the Karel Rada-coached Czech Republic team, as Donaldson hopes that his attacking front, to be led by Cheyna Matthews, Trudi Carter and others, will come to the party.

From a defensive perspective, England-born centre back Victoria Williams and Allyson Swaby are still familiarising themselves with each other in the heart of the Reggae Girlz backline and the next 180-plus minutes of competitive action in Australia will be crucial to their synergy, and, by extension, assisting Donaldson in identifying the right combination to shutout their opponents.

“The players understand that we have things to work on for us to be the best team we can be. Obviously, we have to get better blocking and our offensive line has to play better, so again, the hope is that for the next two games, we will see some improvements,” Donaldson noted.

Meanwhile, striker Cheyna Matthews also believes that with a more positive attitude, the Girlz will indeed put in a much better shift.

“We tried a different game plan [against Spain] and weren’t able to work on it in training as much as we wanted and it kind of showed on the field, but part of what we talk about is holding ourselves accountable and giving individual effort,” she shared.

“That was there at times and at other times it broke down but moving forward we want to stick with our game plan and just continue to build off that. We really want to get some results out of the next games to lift our own game, so that’s our focus so we are going to get in the work and correct some things,” Matthews added.