Head coach of the Jamaican national senior women’s team Hubert Busby says the coaching staff will be hoping for an overall improvement when they play hosts Brazil in their second of their friendly internationals at Fonte Nova Arena in Salvadore on Tuesday.

The Reggae Girls, who were playing together for the first time in nine months, were soundly beaten 4-0 in thier first game played at Arena Pernambuco in Recife on Saturday, with superstar Marta scoring two late goals.

While he said the inclusion of two important squad members — defender and stand-in Captain Allyson Swaby and striker Jody Brown, who both missed the first game — would be game-day decisions, Busby said they were hoping to show improvements in several areas — primarily in ball protection and transition — in today’s contest against the world number 10-ranked Brazilians.

“There are a couple areas that we need to improve on in terms of our build-up play and hold-up play, which will allow us to get out and play in transition but also be able to retain the ball a bit better,” said Busby who is also looking for better cohesion between his players.

“I think our defensive structure in terms of communication and organisation will need to improve — and that is simply because of players not playing with each other on a regular basis for the last nine months so sometimes those relationships and understanding naturally diminish — but, overall, the players have been very open-minded and have shown a really good attitude in terms of understanding the areas in which we didn’t really show as much as we wanted to. But, heading into this game, we are looking to improve on all aspects of the game,” Busby added.

Jamaica gave up a lot of possession on Saturday, failing to register a shot on goal, and Busby, who was named as head coach less than a month ago, said while it is important for the team to secure a positive result, he is more concerned with their level of play.

“We’re looking to improve on all aspects of the game and, more importantly, not about just the result — which is obviously the most important thing — but really look to improve our overall team performance.”

Both Swaby and Brown trained on Monday, which Busby said was encouraging, but he underlined that they are being careful not to rush the players back and will be awaiting word from the medical team as the health and safety of the players are of paramount importance.

“Both players trained today [Monday] and that is a positive sign so we will check in on them and the medical team. It’s important that we are not risking them in what would be their off season, so their health, and safety, and overall well-being as far as making sure that they are in optimum condition to play an international match of this magnitude, will be a collective decision,” he shared.

Busby is bracing for another tough test from the Brazilians but is pushing his team to be adventurous and present more of an offensive threat to their hosts.

“We will always be a team and a group that is defensively sound — and there is nothing wrong with that as this is the base of most successful teams — but one of the things we want to do more is keep the ball, and obviously against a very good team like Brazil it will be more difficult. But, we want to be able to keep the ball, and be a threat in transition, and understand that as we look to evolve that this is an area of our game that really needs to improve,” said Busby.