 Welcome back to the Sports Mac Zone. The inaugural champion of the Concord Cavalry Cup was crowned at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica on Wednesday as Robin Hood consolidated their 1-0 first leg lead over Cavalier with a 2-0 second leg win. In another tight encounter, tournament top goal scorer, Chanel Thomas, received a red card in the 56th minute. Despite a valiant effort with 10 men, Cavalier's resistance was broken late with goals from Franklin single Cromo in the 89th and Jameel Ho writers in stoppage time, sealing the win and the title for the Surinamese club. As quite a consolation for the Jamaican outfit, they will join Robin Hood and 3rd place Mokor in the 2024 edition of the Concord Cav Champions League. While joining us this afternoon to discuss his team's journey through the tournament is technical director of Cavalier Football Club Rudolph Speed. Good afternoon Rudolph, how are you? I'm good, thank you for asking and you? I'm alright, thanks also. So let's talk about yesterday's match, unfortunately that the result didn't go in your favour but what a fight from your team? Well yeah, it was, we missed a lot of chances in the 1st leg, in the 2nd leg. I thought we were battling, they were playing extremely good and Robin Hood is a really good team but that red card, even when I got the red card we were still bringing the fight but then we over exerted ourself pushing forward and conceded 2 late goals. Yeah, would you say the red card was the chaining point where the result was concerned? Definitely, I thought we had the better play up to that point and Robin Hood was hanging and we were just starting to get to them some more and the red card was a bit of a blow, I just thought it was harsh based on what was happening, the time of the game and the tackle wasn't, he actually got the ball so I thought it was a harsh card. Yeah and Rudolf? I didn't think it was a foul, sorry. Yeah, you didn't think it was a foul? Rudolf? Yes, I didn't even think it was a foul, I just thought that he got the ball and that was too harsh a response from the referee. Yeah, really really unfortunate because you know he's such a player you know when he leaves the field of course you know a lot of the players around him they are affected and we saw that in the result of course. But yeah, I saw a report post match interview you were cited saying you know despite the unfortunate result, the result not going in your favour, there were positives where your team was concerned. Can you elaborate a bit on some of those positives? Well there's a lot of positives, I tell you the first one, this has been our third final with this team this year, we went to the final, the Premier League final and knockout so we're more disappointed that we didn't win one of those finals but what happens is that the team had lost about six of its best players I mean since January and then the school players, schoolboy players you know are participating in the league still they are in the finals and the corporate finals so we have lost a number of our players so we are really down to bare bones and to come to that competition and reach the final and also still competing in the Premier League without Skeleton staff I thought we did very well. Yeah interesting that you point out Skeleton staff with all the work that the team has been doing this year and the Concord Cav Champions Cup is coming up not long from now starting in February of 2024 you will have to play the first round now instead of advancing to the round of 16 if you had won this Concord Cav Caribbean Tournament. How do you now go about putting this team together to play all the competitions that you have in front of you and maintain the high level that we have seen from Cavalier in recent times? Well I mean not to mention you know following up on the question that this is probably the youngest professional team in the world. With two months to go before the first game in February I will have some return, Nicola will be returning from injuries, and then I will have eight school wide players who will also return so I will have a much bigger squad to choose from. Yeah interesting that you spoke about Nicola Hamilton I know he spent some time in Finland I think it was hasn't been able to provide much for you in terms of on the field because of that knee injury but if any at all I mean how important is a player like him with the experience given the fact that you have so many youngsters in your setup? You were supposed to be the person who would have held this team together with this experience it's unfortunate that we lost him in the second game I think second or third game in the in the Champions League but also doing Atkinson's back Richard King is back also so I think I don't know if they're going to go again in January because they're alone as expired now but we love those two other players too with some experience still young but experienced so we're hoping to kick on from here if we get all those three players back in January with them. Yeah and the Jamaica Premier League you've played five matches so far a couple of wins a couple of draws just one defeat so it is a decent start to the campaign as you know I guess start to pay more attention to that tournament I want to get an understanding though of how you feel you have gone so far in the JPL and what are the improvements you're looking to make in upcoming matches still hopefully from a Cavalier standpoint surge up the table. Well it's all only focus now what had happened before in last month one of the months when the Premier League just started we had like nine games lined up to play it was difficult and we had to focus on the Champions League because you know how important that is for us to qualify for the Kancaka throne so we did was you know giving everybody a game never trying to feel our best team was just trying to feel the right team so everybody would be fresh and able to play at their best in the Champions League that's not the case now our focus is reversed so we're trying to get our best thing now to play in the JPL. Yeah you know something interesting I find curious and I'm quite happy that we have you here today Rudolf because Cavalier have had a lot of success in recent seasons but that hasn't been reflected in the support that you have as far as spectator support is what I'm talking about even before the the Kancakaf Caribbean Cup final I heard individuals saying well it's Cavalier so you're probably not going to get a big turnout because they don't really have fans one do you agree with that is that something that you would like to fix and if it is how do you go about fixing that? So we are we are well it's something that we grapple with all the time we are probably everybody's second favorite team they have another team and you know we are their second what we have done is built out our social media platforms I think we have the best social media platform in the country now over 15 000 persons and Facebook Instagram I mean individually both of them we have a YouTube page and also have built out platform it is something that we expect to use in the next 12 months to try and get those people that support us on their social media platform to come to the game so that is the plan we have. How soon do you expect to see a difference in your spectator turnout? I think there is already starting there's some upturn because if you notice the final again so some more present it was so low yes when when we scored and I look at the crowd there was a lot of people there jumping up a Cavalier so I'm saying okay so even if they are not all fully all fans they are halfway there so I think it has started to pick up and I just hope it get better and better we just need to have good results keep going doing what we're doing and I think it will get better eventually. Yeah quickly Shanil Thomas two hat-tricks in the ConquerCaf Caribbean copy did get a call up to the Jamaica team for the game last month against Guatemala talk to us about the improvements if any at all that this young man has made this season remember him from Jamaica College winning a Manning cop for them but didn't have a great final season but is he coming of age at Cavalier is he delivering in the way that you would want him to deliver red card aside last night? Well definitely Shanil was the one who led the line for us when we won the 2021 I think after that he suffered a lot of injuries and I'm not sure about you know what his commitment was in those two years but this year he's a changed person he's a training first he's the last to leave he works very very hard and me and both of us will sit on and have discussions about how we can improve his game and he has done them but he was always one of the most talented there we have in the East Charlotte club so I think he's just coming to the fore now everything is coming together. Yeah you spoke about the number of players who could potentially leave in January and we know Cavalier is that type of club you you love the youngsters and you love to sell the youngsters as well do you suspect he is one of those who could be leaving anytime soon? I would be surprised if he didn't leave in the general window there's offers already more than one person's from Europe you know people want him to come on Charles but we're just looking to see what the best offer is out there and then I'm sure is unless we're advising you know what we should want to take up but I'd be very surprised if he's here at the end of January. All right so we're not too sure what the Cavalier team is going to look like come January. We have Amper replacement we have Young Kiana Jackson from right there we have we have Amper replacement we are happy when they leave because you know it's a next one. Yeah there you go yeah not a bad system at all Rudolf Speed thanks very much for joining us tough luck not getting the Conqueror Cavalier Caribbean Cup but you still have a lot of football to play and a lot of high level football as well so we wish you all the very best take care. Thank you for having me. All right Rudolf Speed he is technical director of Cavalier Football Club we run us up in the inaugural Conqueror Cavalier Caribbean Cup. Let's take a break we'll go back with more.