Weatherly unfazed by MoBay inexperience

Montego Bay United (MBU) head coach Dean Weatherly says despite the team's inexperience, it is aiming to the finish as high as possible in the Jamaica Premier League (JPL), which is scheduled to kick off this weekend.

MBU will start their season against last season's runners-up, Waterhouse, and although Weatherly considers this a developmental season, he says once there is an opportunity to excel, they will try their best to capitalise on it.

"The thrust of the club now is youth, because we are looking at development, so we have signed a lot of young players," Weatherly told STAR Sports.

"It is a very young squad, with some good quality and talent. But we might have few players who can guide them because it's an inexperienced bunch, very few have played the league before."

Some of the promising prospects in their ranks are Devereaux McKenzie and Alrick Ottey, the younger brother of Allan Ottey.

But apart from recent national invitee Renaldo Wellington, Giovanni Reid, and Michael Heaven, both of whom were acquired from UWI FC, and Nazime Grant, who played with the team before they were relegated in 2019, all the others will be making their JPL debut.

They have also found it difficult to get practice games, which Weatherly says may result in a longer period of adaptation to the league.

"The older heads we have aren't really older heads," he said. "There are no real seasoned campaigners, but there is no relegation so our intention is to start building and lay the proper foundation.

"It is very difficult to get practice games at this time. What we have are a lot of squad matches, so maybe the first two or three games will be our preseason games.

"So it will be like they are at school learning, but maybe in a year or two, they will graduate and come to fruition and put Montego Bay on the map where we were before."

- L.S.