Walker Cup title bittersweet for Patrick

Winning the ISSA/WATA Walker Cup Knockout title provided a bittersweet moment for St Catherine High School’s head coach, Anthony Patrick, who admitted that the joy of lifting the trophy was tempered by disappointment over missing out on the coveted Manning Cup this season.

Patrick said his team’s Manning Cup campaign lost momentum following the passage of Category Five Hurricane Melissa, which severely disrupted their preparation at a critical stage of the competition.

“We are a bit disappointed not going further in the Manning Cup competition because things were going pretty well for us before Hurricane Melissa came but after the hurricane, the players were not turning up at training the way they usually would,” said Patrick.

“Sometimes only seven players turned up for training and on another day you will see 10 turning up but five out of that weren’t there the day before and so it was a seesaw for us after the hurricane,” he said.

The vastly experienced coach, who has also guided Racing United to the top of the standings in this season’s Jamaica Premier League, pointed to St Catherine’s round-of-16 defeat to Vauxhall as the turning point that derailed their Manning Cup ambitions.

“We didn’t get two or three full training sessions before our round-of-16 game against Vauxhall. That is where everything crumbled for us because we lost that game to them,” Patrick explained.

Despite that setback, Patrick said the disappointment of seeing Eltham, who they defeated twice this season in the preliminary round of the competition progress to the semifinals in the Manning Cup served as motivation for his players to regroup and make a strong push in the Walker Cup.

“When my players look and see Eltham that we defeated twice in the preliminary round reach the semi-finals of the Manning Cup they were all very disappointed because they believe that they should have been in the semi-finals,” he added.

“They also said to themselves that if Eltham can reach the Manning Cup semi-finals, then what we are doing, we are going to go all in and win the Walker Cup and bring back the trophy to the parish of St Catherine and they were determined to salvage and so they went out and they delivered this trophy for us because we believe that we definitely throw away the Manning Cup title this year,” Patrick stated.

The Walker Cup triumph marked Patrick’s third title with St Catherine High and his fourth overall, having previously won the competition with Bridgeport High in 2006. He also won two Manning Cups and an Olivier Shield title with Bridgeport.

St Catherine also fell short in last year’s Manning Cup final, where they were beaten 3-1 by Jamaica College.