By Neto Baptiste
Director of schools football, Rowan Benjamin, believes there has been efforts by coaches within the schools’ football system to tighten their belts and attend regular sessions at their assigned schools following a recent meeting with the hierarchy of the sports ministry.
In an interview with OBSERVER media, Benjamin added that it is however still too early to ascertain the level of improvement as the intervention by Minister of Sports, Daryll Matthew, came towards the end of the schools secondary programme.
“Everybody came to the meeting and everyone was frank, including the minister [Daryll Matthew], the director [Heather Samuel Daley], the deputy director [Evans Jones] and everyone knows exactly what they are to do, but we wouldn’t really see a very clear picture until next year when we turn our attention to the primary school,” he said.
“The minister would have said to me, quite frankly, that he thinks I should be going around and monitoring the coaches a little bit., and that is something that I will definitely take up rather than going to a school to help out with the coaching,” he added.
Reports surfaced in late October that some coaches were guilty of not turning out for sessions at a number of schools taking part in the competition.
The coaches were summoned to a meeting by the sports minister which also included Director of Sports, Heather Samuel Daley and Deputy Director, Evans Jones.
Benjamin said that based on the response from the coaches and all involved, he expects there to be a significant improvement on how coaches approach the job.
“Because it was towards the end of the season, you wouldn’t really get a lot of opportunity to really see what is going on but from the coaches and what they had said in the meeting, I am looking forward for new vigour, new vitality from the coaches going forward,” he said.
The secondary division of the schools’ football competition is expected to climax in January.