2013 Digicel Nationwide Schools Football Championship… Predicting the outcome of today’s semi-finals difficult-Fraser Thomas

Jul 24, 2013 Sports

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Co-ordinator of the Digicel Nationwide Schools Football Championship Lavern Fraser-Thomas speaking with the media ahead of today’s two semi-finals said predicting the outcome of the matches is not a realm she is willing to venture into.
“For me personally, I don’t think there is an easy way to predict today’s winners, yes we know for the

last two years Waramadong and Wismar/Christianburg would have been two of the front runners, having reached the final last year with the latter prevailing in an exciting match. However, this year has already provided a few upsets and one just have to look at the result with Region 9 champions St. Ignatius, who easily disposed of Region 5 last year, but this year the tables were turned and I think quite unexpectedly because a lot of people did expect that Region 9 would have been prevailed again. So for me, that is a clear indication that we cannot really anticipate or figure who our finalists will be”, Fraser-Thomas said.
Fraser-Thomas, who has been coordinating the tournament for the past three years, when asked whether she would attribute the success of many of the schools to the training programme which coaches/teachers were exposed to, said in her opinion it was a mixture of schools now taking the tournament more seriously and are therefore intensifying preparations much earlier, while the new initiative would have also benefitted the schools.
“I would want to say it’s two-fold, and I will say that yes we did have the coaching programme so you had schools out there that would not normally have been exposed to any scheduled or organized coaching programme. However, I also think that schools are beginning to recognize and understand that it is equally important if they want to be a part of this programme, they must prepare and I think that a lot of the schools are now actually doing some preparation before the tournament, hence the improvement in their general standard and development”.
Thorough team preparations, she said, was not restricted to the schools that are considered seasoned campaigners in the competition, but the new schools seemed to have done some amount of preparatory work even though many of them (new schools) were just testing the water.
Fraser-Thomas expressed delight with the steps that they have taken adding that one of the things she is looking forward to in the coming years is a shift in the teams advancing to the quarterfinals, semi-finals and final.
“We are basically seeing the same teams back at this particular stage with the exception of two new comers Ash Educational Trust and Covent Garden Secondary. Covent Garden would have won Region 4, which was won by Bygeval Secondary the last two years. So there have been some new comers at this level and we are hoping that those coming through to this phase will open even wider eventually”.
Addressing the challenges her team would have faced this year, Fraser-Thomas pointed to the logistical issues which became a test as a result of bad weather.
However, schools have been adhering to the rules of the competition which has seen fewer protests when compared to the previous two years.
“Other than that things have been good and we have been able to get this far without too many challenges”.
The 2013 Digicel Under-18 Schools Competition started on June 21 with over 160 schools across the country competing.
Touching on some of the positives, Fraser-Thomas said she was happy with the interest being shown by individuals. She singled out former President of the Georgetown Football Association Troy Mendonca, who according to her has taken on the responsibility to assist Georgetown champions St. George’s Secondary and this she said started when they advanced to the quarterfinals.
Fraser-Thomas also expressed happiness with the support she has received from her team and Digicel which she noted was crucial since this year has understandably been a bigger challenge than the other two years mainly because of the increased level of participation.
“Even though we would have had two years under our belts this was still a challenge because unlike the other two years where we had a change to breathe in between games, this time we did not have that. From June 21st we have been playing football every day in every region almost and so the fact that we have been able to get to this point without the kind of hiccups that one might have expected at this level it says a lot about our support staff and that has really been a positive as well.
Meanwhile, in semi-final action slated for today, defending champions Wismar/Christianburg go up against Georgetown’s champions St. George’s at BV ground, while last year’s runner-up and tournament favourites Waramadong square off against Region 4 champions Covent Garden, at the Uitvlugt Community Centre ground. Kick off time is 16:00 hrs.

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