CLARENDON, Jamaica — Last season, when Geoffrey Maxwell was brought to Effortville Community Centre, 17 games into the Red Stripe Premier League campaign, he was given a mandate to save Humble Lion from relegation. But, deep down, his ultimate ambition was to achieve more.

His pride and credibility wouldn’t allow him to simply aspire for a place in the lower half of the 12-team standing. In the end, however, that’s exactly what he had to settle for, as Humble Lion could only manage to carve out a ninth-place finish.

In his very first media interview as Humble Lion coach, Maxwell said he was baffled that the team is sitting at the foot of the table because “quite frankly, I think they are much better than a lot of the teams in the league”.

Based on that statement, finishing ninth might feel somewhat like a failure for a man who has coached more Premier League teams than any of his colleagues. But, it wasn’t.

Immediately after securing crucial points against Sporting Central Academy at Brancourt, Maxwell did not shy away from telling the media that surviving the drop with Humble Lion, with one game to spare, was indeed a success.

“Mission accomplished!” he said. “I was given a job to keep the team in the league and we did just that.”

One week later, Maxwell, speaking on local television, again made it known that he was hoping to achieve a bit with the central Clarendon club. He noted that had he been at Humble Lion from the start of the season, the team would have finished much higher up on the table.

Now, given the opportunity to take charge of the team from beginning, there’s no prize for guessing where Maxwell’s ambitions lie this season.

That the format of the competition has now been changed to a hybrid of a league and knock-out will only serve to enhance Maxwell’s ambitions. He knows once they are able to finish in the top eight at the end of the third round, when the knock-out phase begins, they will be in with a genuine shot of winning the title.

Not many outside of the club’s diehard supporters will, however, expect Humble Lion to be genuine title contenders. The fact is, Humble Lion are no longer the club that they were four seasons ago – dipping into the transfer market to buy players at will.

Last season, they clearly demonstrated that they are now looking to go about club development in a more conservative manner, by relying more on home-grown talent. “That was always my plan,” club president Mike Henry told the Jamaica Observer at the time. “The first season we were trying to stay in the league, so we needed experience. Last season (2011-12), we showed that we belonged; we were the only rural team in the top six, so now we need to build for the future.”

Whether that will work for or against coach Maxwell is a question that will be answered as the season progresses.

What should work in his favour, however, is the fact that he has had a full pre-season with the team, which should give him a clear idea of the resources he will have at his disposal.

Apart from the departure of a few fringe players, Humble Lion have pretty much retained the core of last season’s team, which wasn’t the kind of team to run circles around opposing teams. They were more of an efficient unit, priding itself on being difficult to beat. And not much is expected to change this season.