So­ca War­riors de­fend­er Alvin Jones said he and his team­mates were up­set that they were un­able to come away with the three points against Grena­da in their Group B open­er of the Sec­ond Round of Con­ca­caf Qual­i­fiers for the 2026 USA/Cana­da/Mex­i­co FI­FA World Cup at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day.

Speak­ing be­fore the team’s de­par­ture at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port for St Kitts & Nevis where the match against Ba­hamas will be played, the 29-year-old Jones, who sur­pris­ing­ly start­ed the match against Grena­da on the bench be­fore be­ing in­tro­duced at the half-time in­ter­val for USA-based mid­field­er Noah Pow­der re­flect­ing on the match said, “We are up­set as a group that we didn’t get the three points be­cause that was our aim to get the three points at home.”

Host T&T need­ed goals from Cana­da-based strik­ers, Ryan Telfer in the 41st, and Re­on Moore in the 74th to sal­vage a 2-2 draw with the Grena­di­ans who led 2-0 in­side the first 30 min­utes with Myles Hip­poly­te scor­ing both items, first from the penal­ty spot in 24th minute, and four min­utes lat­er from a left-foot­ed vol­ley.

Look­ing back on the match Jones, who has been capped 54 times at the se­nior na­tion­al lev­el scor­ing five times, in­clud­ing two against USA said, “I think we start­ed the first half a bit too slop­py, but as a group, we had to look at where we went wrong and fight back.

“It was no se­cret we start­ed the game slow and for­tu­nate­ly we got back in­to the game and end­ed up get­ting the draw and hats off to the fans for cheer­ing us on and giv­ing us that en­er­gy to go back out in the sec­ond half and fight.”

Jones was al­so full of praise for Grena­da, who en­tered the match win­less in their last 18 match­es, with their last win com­ing in March 2021, a 1-0 tri­umph over US Vir­gin Is­lands, say­ing: “Grena­da came with a plan and ex­e­cut­ed their plan very well in the first half and that’s why they got their 2-0 lead and hats off to us for com­ing back out in the sec­ond half and fight­ing for the coun­try.”

Con­cern­ing the sup­port for the lo­cal team with a crowd of 8,500 spec­ta­tors on hand to watch the match, Jones said the sup­port from the lo­cal crowd was amaz­ing.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we didn’t get the three points, but we just want to keep the spir­its high and keep the pos­i­tives go­ing in­to the next game against Ba­hamas, and hope­ful­ly we can get the same sup­port for our next match at home as well.”

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the Ba­hamas match which will be played at the St Kitts & Nevis Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Cen­ter, Bas­seterre, at 5.30 pm Sat­ur­day (June 8), an up­beat Jones said it’s a cou­ple of days be­fore the next match and they can’t af­ford to dwell on the past.

He added, “We have to go for the three points and it’s very im­por­tant be­cause we al­ready dropped points in this game at home and pick­ing up points in these ear­ly match­es are very im­por­tant.”

The So­ca War­riors will then com­plete their four-match sched­ule in 2025 with a home en­counter against St Kitts & Nevis on June 6, fol­lowed by an away out­ing to group favourite Cos­ta Ri­ca on June 10.

Grena­da next plays at home against Cos­ta Ri­ca on Sun­day (June 9)at the Ki­rani James Ath­let­ics Sta­di­um, St George’s, 5 pm.

Thurs­day (June 6) night, Cos­ta Ri­ca was sched­uled to host St Kitts & Nevis at Es­ta­dio Na­cional, San Jose in the first match for both teams while St Kitts & Nevis en­ter­tains Ba­hamas on Tues­day (June 11) at Warn­er Park Foot­ball Sta­di­um, Bas­seterre from 4 pm in the oth­er Group B in the win­dow.