STETHS ready to challenge for d’Cup

Following their disappointing showing in last season's competition, Omar Wedderburn, coach of former daCosta Cup champions St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), is hoping for a much better performance from his team this season.

STETHS, who last won the competition in 2015, were surprisingly dumped at the quarter-final stage last season.

They have been drawn in Zone E alongside Black River, Lacovia, Maggotty, Munro College, Newell and Sydney Pagon.

The Santa Cruz-based institution have lost the services of prolific goalscorer and captain Renaldo Webster along with midfielder Tajhae Green.

However, they have retained key players Antonio Biggs, Denari Watson and Adam Griffiths.

Wedderburn told STAR Sports that last season was a down year for his team, but they are much better prepared for this year's competitions.

"Our expectations this year is to do better than we did last year in terms of the team itself and how we play in the competition," said Wedderburn.

"I think last year we lacked leadership, but this year we have stepped it up a notch or two and I am expecting us to go further than last year."

He continued: "I also think that we have a better team than last year because last year we had individual players, but this year we have a complete team, they are very young, but they are here to fight."

CONSISTENT TEAM

STETHS have been one of the most consistent teams in the daCosta Cup over the years and Wedderburn noted that he is confident that they will do well.

"We dropped out at the quarter-finals of the daCosta Cup and it was unfamiliar territory for us to drop out at that stage of the competition. This year we are going to dip deep and push further," he said.

"We started to build last year and so we are only going to improve on what we built because we want to make sure that we try to go a step or two up," said Wedderburn, whose team also won the Ben Francis Knockout title in 2015.

I don't think that there will be any pressure on the players because they know about the culture of the school and so they are up for the task and they are willing to play and give of their best for the school this season."