DESPITE their early season rust, head coach of Cavalier FC Rudolph Speid says his team deserves more credit after reaching consecutive finals of the Wray & Nephew Jamaica Premier League.

The last season’s runners-up beat Arnett Gardens 3-1 in their semi-final second leg on Sunday at Sabina Park to advance 4-2 on aggregate, and will now take on defending champions Mount Pleasant Academy for the second year in a row.

After a less-than-ideal start to the season during which they won just three of their opening eight games, Cavalier found form and ended the season on a high, finishing second in the table on 54 points and earning a spot in the last four of the play-offs.

Speid’s team spent parts of the season playing in the Concacaf Caribbean Cup as well as the Concacaf Champions Cup.

He said overcoming those challenges was huge, and praised his team for getting the job done.

“This league is not a ‘league’,” he said. “You just have to get into the top six, and once we’re close our around there we’d be good. Why we were struggling [earlier on] was because we were travelling so much and playing so many games with a small squad, because the schoolboys hadn’t come back as yet, and we were fatigued.

“If we didn’t [make the final] we would have been disappointed; we knew it would have been hard and we worked towards it. We took a dip in form but in the last three matches for the round we were victorious and scoring a lot of goals. That’s the nature of our team; it’s difficult for us to lose a lot of games because of how we play so we always thought we’d get there — but it was a little bit harder than we thought.”

Despite their first-leg matchup ending 1-1, Speid was always confident they would get by Arnett Gardens.

“We wanted to take the lead, and we did,” he said. “It’s very difficult to beat us when we’re leading because we’re one of the teams that defends very well and plays in transition very well so once we took the lead it was much easier to wait patiently to pick them apart, which is what we did. They have four midfielders playing at the back so they’re good ball handlers in their normal position but at the back, it’s a different thing. So that’s why in both games you saw us on the front foot, pressing away, and we reaped some success. We also knew on the dribble they would have problems tackling so we brought that game.”

Cavalier will be looking to dethrone Mount Pleasant as champions come Sunday at the National Stadium, and Speid says the preparation has now begun.

“I didn’t see [Mount Pleasant in the semis], I was just drinking water and minding my business,” he said jokingly. “I’m going to be studying them now and come up with the plan. When I look at [my] team that started in the final last year, I think I have a team that’s more mature now and have a good very chance.”