JAMAICA’S national senior team coaches say the search for players based home and abroad to shore up its ranks in the bid for World Cup qualification remains a vigorous activity of the technical programme.

Head coach Theodore ‘Tappa’ Whitmore and his Brazilian assistant Alfredo Montesso confirmed that they have isolated a number of British-born players, in particular, and have now brought three of them into their scope.

With Jamaica facing an injury crisis ahead of three quickfire and critical CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers against Mexico (June 4), the USA (June 7) and Honduras (June 11), the need to strengthen its player pool has taken on added significance.

Though it’s unlikely that any of them will be available for the three upcoming matches, the coaching staff continues its pursuit of defenders with the Reading pair of Michael Hector and Shaun Cumminngs.

Also, Birmingham City midfielder Ravel Morrison is on the radar of the Jamaica Football Federation.

With defenders Nyron Nosworthy, Jermaine Taylor and Demar Phillips and forward Dane Richards out injured for the next flurry of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying matches, a possible frailty in the squad’s ability to have high-quality replacements in an emergency was highlighted.

“For the game against Mexico we will have to change 75 per cent of the defensive line, as we have Nosworthy injured, also Phillips with a hamstring, and Taylor got a shoulder injury in the last game for his club, so only Mariappa remains in the backyard,” said Montesso in The Bahamas on Sunday.

“So if we don’t have replacements, then we are going to be in problems, and this will happen all the time as these players will expose themselves all the time in games for their clubs,” he added.

Montesso, who has been with the national programme in different spells, starting in 1996, noted that it’s critical to have a strong squad that will enable the team to function at a high level even if the regular starters are unavailable for one reason or another, giving credence to the importance of having more numbers in the squad for each position.

“We have to keep our squad of players in a very good number that will give you the opportunity to replace when necessary. Sometimes people say you are looking for players because you never set your team, but this is not the case — the players have their moment and the team has its moment as well. Things will happen,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Montesso, who was the trainer during the successful Road to France campaign, said it’s an ongoing process to scout and find new players for the team, which isn’t always an easy exercise.

“The effort continues all the time, especially because football is a continuing development and people will ask. We do have to look for players inside and outside of Jamaica.

“Once we search and we see a player with the quality who can contribute, of course we have to consider him,” Montesso said.

“We brought in Daniel Gordon and we are really satisfied with him in his first game after I went to Germany to see him. I also went to England to see two other players as well.

“One is a defender (Hector), but he was very young. He is attached to Reading, but is on loan to a second division team, but I don’t think he is ready now as I think he needs to mature a little bit more,” said Whitmore’s deputy.

Montesso added that “we are looking at Ravel Morrison, who plays at Birmingham, and we are following him to see if he’s interested in becoming a Reggae Boy”.

The search, the Brazilian made clear, is also continuing on local shores as well.

“But, locally, we are looking too, and we like Jeremie Lynch, who played a good end of the season with Harbour View, and he played a wonderful game against Tottenham… Alvas (Powell) has been developing a lot as a defender, and it’s important to be looking for those guys because they will be the future of the Reggae Boyz,” he said.

Montesso says, while the current Brazil 2014 campaign is the priority, “we have to be focused on the future beyond that as well”.

Should Hector, 19, who is currently on loan at lower division Cheltenham Town, and Cummings become Reggae Boyz, they would join three other Reading players already in the fold. The others are club captain Jobi McAnuff, Adrian Mariappa and Garath McCleary.

Jamaica currently sit at the bottom of the CONCACAF Hexagonal with only two points from three matches, just three points adrift of leaders Panama with five.