Montego Bay, Jamaica – Guyana’s Golden Jaguars went down 1-nil to Jamaica when the two teams met on Friday evening at the Catherine Hall Stadium in Montego Bay Jamaica, in their FIFA International Friendly.
In front of a lively crowd in the St.James parish capital which is known to be a lucrative tourist destination, the first half ended scoreless as the Jaguars defended valiantly under the assault of the “Reggae Boyz” attack, led by captain and striker Luton Shelton.
Although the initial stages of the second was almost carbon body to the first half, Guyana begun to step up the gas with forward Carl Cort and wingers Dwain “Dugin” Jacobs and Dwight Peters leading the charge.However in the 61st minute, Jamaicans would find the back of the net. 21year old forward Jeremie Lynch of Jamaican Premier League side, Harbour View FC, scored on his debut to hand the Reggae Boys the victory.
Lynch was a late replacement into the Jamaica squad after star striker Ricardo Fuller had pulled out.
Guyana almost pulled a goal-back in the dying minutes of the game when right back Kester David headed a corner from Peters into the cross-bar.
With both teams preparing for the third round of the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 Qualifiers, the Jaguars will now travel to play Panama on May 20th.They then wrap up their preparation with a camp at a undisclosed South American location, before heading to Mexico where they would face the home side on June 8 in the first game of the qualifiers at the world famous Estadio Azetca, in which the 1970 and 1986 world cup finals where held.
Guyana is drawn alongside Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica, while Jamaica will face the likes of Guatemala, USA and Antigua and Barbuda.
Guyana-
Richards Reynolds, Julien Edwards, Kester Jacobs (Trayon Bobb-65th), Kester David, Shawn Beveney (Anthony Abrams-73rd), Carl Cort (Vurol Mills-75th), Konata Mannings (Anthony Benfield-50th), Charles Pollard, Dwain Jacobs (Colin Nelson-82nd), Dwight Peters (Brandon Beresford-74th), Kayode McKinnon
Subs not used: Ronson Williams, Daniel Wilson,
Booked: Mannings-35th
Jamaica-
Jacomeno Barrett, Rohan Reid (Renae Lloyd-82nd), Luton Shelton, Nathan Smith (Lance Laing-53rd), Keammar Daley (Sean Fraser-71st), Ewan Grandison, Joel Senior (Errol Steven-54th), Jeremie Lynch (Dino Williams-77th), Nyron Nosworthy (Damion Stewart-82nd), Adrian Mariappa, Xavian Virgo