In­ter­im T&T women’s se­nior foot­ball team head coach Ken­wyne Jones says he ex­pects host Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to be a very good test for his team in their two up­com­ing friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­als.

A for­mer na­tion­al se­nior men’s team cap­tain, Jones was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion last month and led the se­nior women to two drawn re­sults against Pana­ma at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, first 0-0 and then 1-1.

The match­es kicked off the women’s team prepa­ra­tions for the Con­ca­caf Women’s World Cup and Gold Cup qual­i­fiers with the T&T women's team set to face Guyana, Nicaragua, Do­mini­ca, and Turks and Caicos Is­land in Group F be­gin­ning in Feb­ru­ary.

To­day (Mon­day), Jones and his tech­ni­cal staff along with 22 play­ers, in­clu­sive of nine new­com­ers will de­part for San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic where they will face that coun­try’s team in two match­es on No­vem­ber 26 and 30 at the Pan Amer­i­can Sta­di­um, San Cristo­bal, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, both kick­ing off from 6 pm on each day.

Speak­ing via Zoom to lo­cal me­dia on Sun­day, Jones not­ed that for a team that hasn’t played foot­ball or com­pet­i­tive match­es for quite a long time we (T&T) are slow­ly pro­gress­ing to the lev­el that the squad needs to be play­ing at.

With one eye on the qual­i­fiers, Jones in ex­plain­ing why they are fac­ing the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic as op­posed to oth­er teams said, “In the group games our first match is against Nicaragua and then Do­mini­ca.

“So we are try­ing to mim­ic the op­po­si­tion that we are go­ing to face, and I think at this stage as we are build­ing and putting philoso­phies in, the test of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic is a good one for us.

“It will al­low us to do some im­ple­ment­ing of strate­gic tac­ti­cal changes of what we would like our DNA to be and I see it as a re­al­ly good test.

A for­mer Eng­land and USA-based in­ter­na­tion­al Jones said his team had the op­tion of play­ing stronger op­po­nents, but opt­ed against it.

“We were of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play Mex­i­co and Cos­ta Ri­ca, but as a coach­ing staff we thought it was way too soon for us to be play­ing them, so then we ac­tive­ly scout­ed and came up with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Com­ment­ing on the com­po­si­tion of the squad for the two match­es, Jones point­ed out that the dif­fer­ence be­tween some of the new faces and the ones who were in the pre­vi­ous camp is that they have been in their col­lege sea­sons and have been play­ing com­pet­i­tive match­es like Asha James, Chel­si Jadoo who is a pro­fes­sion­al in Por­tu­gal, Kedie John­son,

Kay­deen Jack and Chris­sy Mitchell.

“They have all achieved plau­dits with their col­leges and it helps us to not on­ly have a stronger squad but a more bal­anced squad as well.

Look­ing fur­ther down the road, Jones said there are al­so some names that we may see in the fu­ture that is un­known to the pub­lic of T&T.

He added, “We have been do­ing our home­work and ac­tive­ly scout­ing these peo­ple and the pub­lic could be re­al­ly ex­cit­ed by the few names that we will be in­tro­duc­ing in­to the squad in the near fu­ture.

How­ev­er, con­cern­ing two play­ers who were not called up,

Goal­keep­er, Saun­dra Baron, and Sum­mer Ar­joon Jones said, “We went a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent in this camp in that there are some faces that I ac­tive­ly seek out to add to the squad based on their col­lege sea­sons.

“There are still quite a few play­ers we want to be able to add in the camp be­fore the qual­i­fiers, but what we did this time is tried to get a bet­ter bal­ance squad than what we had last time to be able to go out and tac­ti­cal­ly per­form.

He added,” There are a lot of names out there and still a lot of names that the pub­lic I think do not know that we have been scout­ing and ac­tive­ly en­gag­ing with to be a part of the squad and I re­al­ly do see some ex­cit­ing play­ers com­ing in­to the squad in the fu­ture.

Con­cern­ing the two friend­ly match­es, Jones stat­ed that it’s great to con­tin­ue prepa­ra­tion like this not on­ly hav­ing a train­ing camp but hav­ing two games against in­ter­na­tion­al op­po­si­tion.

“What we are try­ing to do is to build the team up as best as we can for the qual­i­fiers and hav­ing an­oth­er Cen­tral Amer­i­can or Latin-speak­ing team to play against is go­ing to mim­ic who we are go­ing to play first in the group come the qual­i­fiers in Feb­ru­ary and this we see as a re­al­ly good op­por­tu­ni­ty to not on­ly get some new play­ers in the squad

but to al­so test our tac­ti­cal re­mit for this camp.

“Try­ing to qual­i­fy for a World Cup you need a pool of 35 to 40 play­ers to be able to take you through the dif­fer­ent stages and we have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see some play­ers that we haven’t seen and have not been a part of the team and have not been a part of the train­ing camps pre­vi­ous­ly

“The in­ten­tion is to have a very com­pet­i­tive squad and if we have a com­pet­i­tive squad it will on­ly dri­ve the stan­dard of the team high­er and that’s what we need go­ing in­to World Cup qual­i­fiers.

T&T se­nior women 22 mem­ber squad:

Ten­isha Palmer, Naomie Guer­ra, Den­necia Prince, Kimi­ka Forbes, Ken­nya Cord­ner, Col­lette Mor­gan, Karyn Forbes, Tsianne Le­an­der, Rhea Bel­grave, Jaasiel Forde, Maylee At­tin-John­son, Chel­cy Ralph, Aky­la Wal­cott, Rae­nah Camp­bell, Liana Hinds, Kedie John­son, Asha James, Kay­deen Jack, Chel­si Jadoo, Vic­to­ria Swift, Lau­ryn Hutchin­son, Chris­sy Mitchell,

Tech­ni­cal staff: Ken­wyne Jones (coach), Char­lie Mitchell

(as­sis­tant coach), James Baird (goal­keep­er coach), At­i­ba Downes (strength and con­di­tion­ing train­er), DR Anyl Goopeesingh (doc­tor), Aqiy­la Gomez (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Ter­ry John­son-Je­re­mi­ah

(equip­ment man­ag­er), Alexan­dria Olton (Sports psy­chol­o­gist), Kyl­la Charles (med­ical mas­sage), Joanne Daniel (man­ag­er)