Mandeville, Manchester — No school from this south central parish has ever won the daCosta Cup or, for that matter, any major under-19 football title.

However, Andrew Edwards, coach of Manchester High, is intent on changing that picture this season.

Speaking to the Jamaica Observer Central on Thursday, ahead of his team’s 7-0 thrashing of May Day High in their opening ISSA/FLOW daCosta Cup game on Saturday, Edwards oozed confidence.

“Certainly we not leaving ourselves out of the mix,” said Edwards, when asked about the likely favourites for the daCosta Cup title.

“We had a pretty good season last year, which was my first year. We were just edged out of the semi-finals by (eventual daCosta Cup champions) Cornwall College, and this year we are definitely expecting to go better. And we believe, based on what we have seen in the preseason, that we have as good a chance as anybody else to lift our first title,” he said.

Edwards, also the head coach of Jamaica’s national under-17 programme, listed other likely contenders for the daCosta Cup as the “usual culprits”: Cornwall College, St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), Rusea’s High School, and Clarendon College.

Additionally, Edwards, who tasted daCosta Cup success with STETHS in 2009, identified Munro College — which won the last of many titles in the early 1960s — as having “certainly put together a very strong team”.

He had also received good reports about Garvey Maceo High, he said.

Edwards said 50 to 70 per cent of players in his squad in the 2016 season were still at school — a factor which had helped to inspire optimism.

“We are giving ourselves a good shot at the (daCosta Cup) title,” he said. “We know it’s not going to be easy, given that it’s something that we have never done as a school before, but we have prepared very well and we continue to prepare …” he said.

Manchester High are drawn in Zone F of the ISSA/FLOW daCosta Cup alongside May Day High, Belair High, DeCarteret College, Mile Gully High, and Cross Keys High.

— Garfield Myers