Robert Bailey, STAR Writer

The 2011-12 ISSA/Gatorade/ Digicel Manning Cup season is finally here and all eyes will be fixed on last season's all-conquering Jamaica College (JC), as they begin their quest for a second consecutive hold on the trophy, when they tackle Camperdown at the Montego Bay Sports Complex.

Both teams have journeyed to St James for what will be the curtain-raiser of the schoolboy football season, where they will perform the opening act of a double-header, beginning at 2:30 p.m.

Having secured the triple crown - Manning Cup, Walker Cup and Olivier Shield - last season, the JC contingent will be under pressure to repeat this feat.

However, the Old Hope Road-based school is hoping to start its campaign on a winning note against their opponents from east Kingston.

"This is the first game of the season and so we are expecting to start off on a winning note," said Delroy Brown, assistant coach of JC.

"It is a very important game because if we don't win the first game it can put us under a little pressure for the upcoming games," he said.

inspirational playmaker

"The team will be missing attacking players such as inspirational playmaker and captain Ashani Walker, along with Andre Messam and Odane Greenword.

Brown added that these players will certainly be missed, but notes that they will be relying on total team effort throughout the season, starting with today's game against Camperdown.

"It is a new season and we are not as experienced as last year, but as the competition goes on then we will just have to make the adjustments, if necessary," Brown said.

Junior Flemming, Nicholas Scott and Conroy Johnson are among the senior players returning for JC this season.

Meanwhile Camperdown's assistant coach, Stanford Patrick, whose team was beaten twice last season by JC, is very optimistic his team can pull off the first upset of the season.

"The players are very confident and they are focussed because we lost to JC twice last year and so we are going to turn the tables on them in tomorrow's game," said Patrick.

"However, we are not going to take anything for granted because we are going up against the defending champions and we know that it is going to be a tough game," he said.

Despite retaining four players from last season, Patrick noted that they have a lot of depth and quality in his squad to win the Manning Cup this year.