Audley Boyd, Assistant Editor - Sports

Jamaica forward Luton Shelton (left) takes the ball around Grenada defender Marc Marshall. - AP

CARSON, California:

JAMAICA made an auspicious start to the CONCACAF Gold Cup football tournament hammering Caribbean counterparts Grenada 4-0 in their Group B opener at the Home Depot Center last night.

Luton Shelton (21st), Ryan Johnson (39th), Demar Phillips (79th) and Omar Daley (84th) scored for the Reggae Boyz, who jumped to three points and top of the four-team group.

"It's a good way to start, but I think we could have scored a lot more (goals) tonight," said Jamaica's head coach, Theodore Whitmore.

"Except for complacency and our finishing, the overall performance of the team was excellent," he added.

The Reggae Boyz controlled play from the opening whistle, seeming quite intent on developing a rhythm as they played around the ball while opting for high percentage passes, which were heavily concentrated in their defensive third of the field.

Clearly, the emphasis was on safe keeping as the lack of pace indicated a plan to build steadily, with Vernan and opposite flank defender Demar Phillips, central defenders Dicoy Williams, Jermaine Taylor and Shavar Thomas, along with central midfielders Rodolph Austin and Jason Morrison, having the lion's share of the ball.

difficult

With Grenada finding it difficult to dispossess the Jamaicans and keeping the ball when they got it, the Reggae Boyz easily made the transition to a more dangerous game with additional pace, as they went past the quarter-hour mark and created their first good chance at the 19th minute, when Luton Shelton played through Phillips, who shot into the side-netting from the edge of the 18-yard area.

It was one of the clearest signals that a goal was in the making and having survived a close moment to turn the ball behind for a corner kick, Grenada could not defend the follow-up that was played short by Austin to Dane Richards.

The latter then crossed low and Shelton attacked the ball, met it at the six-yard box and used the outside of his boot to steer it high past Shemel Louison into the goal.

Jamaica looked hungrier with the goal and launched a series of raids on the Grenada goal, almost scoring at the 25th when Richards, now becoming more of a factor, took a cross-field pass from Phillips and served a perfect cross to Ryan Johnson at the back post. Unmarked, Johnson bent for a header on a dipping ball that hit his thigh and bounced tamely to the goalkeeper.

A flurry of opportunities came after, as Jamaica found an unmanned route into the Grenadian defence through both flanks and served up a load of crosses, that went unanswered at goal mouth.

Finally, Johnson made one count; one that could not have been missed.

a speculative effort

Richards got behind the defence out wide again and served a grounded pass across the six-yard line, that Johnson tucked away firmly.

Johnson got two other opportunities to score before the half-time interval, at which time the statistics read Jamaica 10 attempts on goal; Grenada 1 - a speculative effort from half line that barely had paced to roll to goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts inside the penalty box.

The already dominant Jamaicans turned up the controls but Shelton and Johnson, the main benefactors, never seemed to be in the mood for a hat-trick taking as they spurned chance after chance.

Among the easier were an opportunity rammed over the crossbar from seven yards by Shelton; and an unbelievable side-footed shot on to the goalpost by Johnson, after being put clear through by substitute Keammar Daley.

It would get better though as the substitutes injected into the game by Whitmore, Daley and his unrelated namesake, Omar, along with Jevaughn Watson, showed much hunger and breathed new life into Jamaica's attacks, as the team simply drained through a Grenadian defence that had become nothing but a sieve.

To indicate their porous nature, Phillips took a pass off Daley on the flank, took two touches as he went by two challenges and ended up with a clear chance six yards from goal, that he hit firmly under Loiuson to make Jamaica's long awaited third goal at the 79th minute.

Then at the 84th, Jamaica scored what could be the goal of the championship thus far through a neat combination play of one-twos with some deft touches from Keammar Daley and Watson, followed by a world-class finish from Omar Daley, who rocketed a left-footed volley from the top of the penalty box that rocketed into the pigeon-hole at the unprotected side of the goal.

"I'm very disappointed with our performance because we had a game plan and from the off we didn't stick to it," said Grenada's coach, Michael Adams. "We talked about denying the Jamaicans space and time on the ball and in fact, from the outset we gave them time."

Grenada midfielder Shane Rennie (right) kicks Jamaican defender Jermaine Taylor in the face during the first half of a CONCACAF Gold Cup match yesterday in Carson, California. Jamaica won the game 4-0.