S an Jose, Costa Rica — Shaun Francis, Reggae Boyz captain against Costa Rica, gave his side a passing grade despite their 0-1 loss inside Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica on Tuesday night.

The 32-year-old left-sided player believes that once the Boyz are afforded the chance to spend time together to prepare, they can be a dangerous proposition for any team in Concacaf.

“First and foremost, I just want to give thanks; it’s a pleasure and an honour to be able to represent the team as a leader and captain,” beamed Francis at game’s end.

“Overall, I thought it was a very good performance, [though] there is definitely work to be done. I think there is a lot of talent upfront to score goals and we have the defence and midfield to contain teams, but we just need a lot more time together to make sure we work on those stuff.

“As you can see with the international break, we don’t get a lot of time to spend together on the practice field and we get one or two days to play a game and that’s it.”

Keysher Fuller netted just prior to the half-hour mark in a game played before an estimated 12,000 spectators in a 35,000-capacity stadium.

It was a game of few chances, as Jamaica’s head coach Theodore Whitmore made good on his promise with eight changes to the starting team, which went down 0-2 to El Salvador in the final game of the Concacaf Nations League last Saturday.

The hosts enjoyed the majority of ball possession in the first half and went ahead a minute after Jamaica created their first real chance when Brian Brown turned his defender Geancarlo Gonzalez inside out on his way into the penalty area, but no player in green and black could get on the end of his teasing, grounded cross.

And as fate would have it the Reggae Boyz were cut open immediately after when a ball from Joel Campbell, drifting on from the right flank, was slipped through for right back Fuller, who beat the advancing Amal Knight in goal.

It was a more even display in the second half with the Boyz creating a few half-chances, which would have left Real Madrid’s goalkeeper Keilor Navas a little nervous at times.

Francis agreed: “From the performance on Saturday, which wasn’t the performance that we wanted, and come today (Tuesday) it was a much better performance, even though we lost 1-0 we did create chances and we did what we thought we were able to do to create the chances. We just didn’t make use of those.”

The Louisville City FC player will not let the team’s failure to earn a place in League A of the new Concacaf Nations League put a damper on his confidence in the Reggae Boyz as a group.

“I cannot speak for each party but for me and a couple of other guys who I have spoken to, our mindset is to forget about that. We can’t do anything about that now. We know we qualified for the Gold Cup and the aim is to win it. The last two Gold Cup tournaments we went to the final and we had the opportunity to win, so we are hoping third time is the charm.”

He added: “The main goal is working to win the Gold Cup. Whenever we get the chance to come together as a unit we have to work on what we need to do, which is scoring goals, creating chances, better movement, getting a better understanding of each player and if we are able to do that we have a really good chance of winning the Gold Cup.

“Time together is very important. We can go back to the last Gold Cup where I think we had a week and a couple days before our first game and it did so much for us in terms of bringing the group together and just the mental strength that the group had in terms of going into that competition.

“We knew our backs were against the wall, we knew we had a team where it was mostly locally bred players and the team that went the previous edition of the Gold Cup was a mixture and basically had a target on our backs and we had to do well and represent the country and now it is even a bigger target on our backs, having gone to two straight finals.”

The Jamaica Observer understands that plans are in place for at least another friendly international for the Reggae Boyz prior to kick off-of the Gold Cup Tournament, which could see Jamaica host a game for the first time ever.

Teams: Jamaica – Amal Knight (Jeadine White 62nd), Ladale Richie (Je-Vaughn Watson 82nd), Damion Lowe (Jamoi Topey 56th), Shaun Francis, Alvas Powell, Michael Hector (Fabion McCarthy 56th), Kevon Lambert, Maalique Foster (Javon East 62nd), Junior Flemmings, Dever Orgill (Cory Burke 86th), Brian Brown.

Booked: None

Subs not used: Andre Blake, Ricardo Morris, Darren Mattocks, Peter Vassell, Kemar Lawrence, Devon Williams

Costa Rica – Keilor Navas, Giancarlo Gonzalez, Celso Borges, Bryan Ruiz (Jose Guillermo Ortiz 86th), Mayron George, Joel Campbell (Luis Ronaldo Araya 78th), Allan Cruz (Jose Mora 64th), Francisco Calvo, Keysher Fuller (Ian Smith 72nd), Kendall Watson (Juan Pablo Vargas 78th), Ronald Matarrita (Ariel Lassiter 64th)

Booked: Matarrita (41st)

Subs not used: Marco Madrigal, Leonel Moreira, Elias Aguilar, Waylon Francis, Randall Leal, Jimmy Marin

Referee: Oliver Vergara (Panama)

Assistant Referees: Walter Lopez (Honduras), Christian Ramirez (Honduras)

Fourth Official: Juan Gabriel Calderon (Costa Rica)

— Ian Burnett