KINGSTON, Jamaica – Mona High gave up the only 100 per cent win record left in the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup competition when they went down 2-4 to Kingston College at the Stadium East Field last Saturday and while it wasn’t the ideal result for them, their Technical Director, Craig Butler says that his innermost wish was granted.

“There is only one way that I am assured that I am playing against KC and JC and that is if we lose to KC, so God gave me what could have been a wish. We didn’t want to lose, but we play KC, and we will play JC,” he said in his post-match interview.

Mona went behind 0-2 in the first half, the first time they faced such a deficit this season and Butler explained that it was because of going away from their tried and tested system.

“We are used to playing a system and what we did was, we compensated for one of their players, ‘Whisper’ and put one of our players to mark him, instead of playing what we know to be our system, our ‘domino six’.”

Butler said that they reverted to their way of playing at the start of the second half which helped them to draw level but were undone by his own academy players in the end.

“We immediately went back to the ‘domino six’, got back the goals but as fate would have it, against the run of play, ‘my boy’ score pan mi,” he said jokingly.

With arguably nothing more than bragging rights to gain from the victory last Saturday, Butler reasoned that it was the best game for his team to lose at this stage of the season.

“The reality of it is, if we were to lose, now is the best possible time to lose. You don’t want to lose a final, you don’t want to lose a semifinal. So, if this game that really is inconsequential to the outcome, moving forward, I think this was the best game to lose.”

He also thinks the loss will be an important learning tool for his players.

“We did our best and our players will learn. The more they learn from this, is the stronger they are gonna be in the semi-finals,” he promised.

Butler was also highly complimentary of the Kingston College player, Dujuan “Whisper” Richards who scored a hattrick in the game and who is also a part of his Phoenix Academy.

“Whisper is a super-talented player, built by the Phoenix, I am proud of him and if anybody should score, I think, better him than anybody else.”

Butler couldn’t help but take a dig at his alma mater Jamaica College (JC) when asked how much he was looking forward to meeting them in the semi-final.

“It is a pleasure because some people need to be taught a lesson, the difference between development and recruitment. I am looking forward to seeing how that works out,” he said in his closing remarks.

The Manning Cup semi-finals are set for Tuesday, November 22 inside the National Stadium.