Mount Pleasant Academy Head Coach Theodore Whitmore says the entire club set-up deserves praise after making back-to-back Wray & Nephew Jamaica Premier League finals.

The defending champions, who were also this season’s league phase table toppers, beat Waterhouse 2-1 in the second leg of the semi-final on Sunday at Sabina Park to advance 3-2 on aggregate.

Admitting that making consecutive finals is difficult, Whitmore says an all-round effort from the club did the job.

“I must congratulate the players, the technical staff, the sporting director, [and] the management. I think they kept it together; we had a lot of meeting and a lot of fights, but at the end of the day it was operation May 19 [league final] and we’re there now,” he said.

After finding some displeasure with last week’s first-leg performance, Whitmore was delighted to see the turnaround in the team’s efforts.

“We saw Waterhouse last week, we knew areas where we could have hurt them, and I think we did that this afternoon. We made a few tactical changes and I think it bore fruit for us, but what we wanted this afternoon, we achieved it in terms of scoring first. If you look on the quarter-final we were yet to see Waterhouse come from a goal down, and I think this afternoon we stuck to the objective,” he said.

Waterhouse could have put themselves in front in the 16th minute when the league’s leading goalscorer Javane Bryan was one-on-one with Shaquan Davis. But Davis came up big to deny Bryan an 18th league goal.

WHITMORE…we made a few tactical changes and I think it bore fruit for us (Photo: Paul Reid)

The St Ann-based club would make Waterhouse pay and found the important goals from man-of-the-match Devonte Campbell.

The 20-year-old got his first in the 40th minute with a well-placed strike which beat Waterhouse goalkeeper Kemar Foster. He returned in the 57th minute to grab his second when he beat Foster again, this time from an improbable angle.

Mount Pleasant were made to sweat in the final 25 minutes when Shaquille Dyer was shown a straight red card for putting his hands on referee Odette Hamilton.

Waterhouse pressed and found a goal in the third minute of time added from veteran Keithy Simpson, but it was too little, too late as Mount Pleasant progressed.

After describing the first-leg performance as a masterclass, Waterhouse Head Coach Marcel Gayle believes fatigue and pressure took a toll on the team.

“It can be a bit of both. I mean, this is the game of football, sometimes it comes down to inches and I think if you saw the goals we conceded today, any other day we’d have probably defended better. Nevertheless, we created a number of chances in the first 15, 20 minutes. If we capitalised on those chances it would be a different ball game,” he said.

The Drewsland, St Andrew-based club finished sixth in the league standings after qualifying on the final day.

Gayle says to make it to the last four against the reigning champions was a great achievement.

“It was a gallant effort from everybody; from the coaching staff to the players to make it possible. We had a roller-coaster ride last season, picked up momentum at the right time but, unfortunately, the game we wanted to leave it all on the pitch, we just didn’t get the go ahead goal,” said Gayle.

The final is scheduled for next Sunday at the National Stadium.