Against the backdrop of the Jamaica Reggae Boyz’s qualification to the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup, Head Coach Steve McClaren believes the local-based players have been hugely pivotal to the team’s progress.

The national senior men’s football team beat St Vincent and the Grenadines 3-0 in the Concacaf Gold Cup preliminary match at Sabina Park on Tuesday to advance 4-1 on aggregate to this summer’s tournament.

Along with an own goal from St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Andrew Johnson, Arnett Gardens striker Warner Brown and former Arnett Gardens winger Renaldo Cephas both got their first international goals for Jamaica.

The Boyz were able to avoid a must-win scenario on Tuesday after their last-gasp goal in the first leg and McClaren says he’s relieved the team got the job done to qualify for their sixth-straight Gold Cup.

“I think the fans will be at ease as we all are because we put ourselves in a hole. If we hadn’t got that penalty in the last minute, it would have been a bigger hole. But as I said, the stats from the first game are pretty similar in terms of 16 shots, I think six or seven on target and 64 per cent possession. I’m really pleased about the outcome and we’ve learnt a lot. There’s no easy games in this region at all,” he said.

One of the major talking points going into the two legs was McClaren’s selection of 10 local-based players with, Brown and Cavalier Captain Richard King playing both games, and Mount Pleasant’s Jahshaun Anglin making a substitute appearance on Tuesday.

McClaren says he will continue to pick the Jamaica Premier League players after being impressed with them over the last few months.

“Richard King was excellent defensively and coming out with the ball, Warner Brown not just caused problems with his pace but held the ball up and was always a target for us. We’ve got no problem giving people a chance and Warner deserved it. From the first camp I saw it a bit but I felt with his speed, running in behind, he’s a nightmare for defenders,” he said.

“The local players have made it difficult for the UK and foreign-based players coming in, so it was a balanced squad but the local players never shied away from the challenge; they kept the tempo of training very high which is what the starting 11 require.”

McClaren, though, says more work is needed as he tries to imprint his style on the team.

“When we’re together, we need to educate. That’s what I learnt from the camp with the local players; we need to educate them more into how we want to play, how we want to build up, how to make it three or four at the back, how we want to press. It’s about two or three ways which we’ve been working on to build up and press and also about getting the balance in midfield,” he said.

Jamaica will find out their opponents for the Gold Cup group stage on April 10 when the draw takes place. They will be in Pot 2 and could face either the United States, Mexico, Canada or Panama who are the seeded teams for the tournament.