Buzzing, belief and Barbados are the words of the day.
That's how National Women's Senior Team coach Damian Briggs is describing the mood in his camp ahead of their Concacaf Women's World Cup qualifying opener.
The Women Warriors begin their campaign on Monday when they face Barbados in Bridgetown, and Briggs says the team firmly believes they can come away with a positive result.
00:00The training camp is over. The complete squad is all together and ready to travel to Barbados tomorrow, as head coach Damien Briggs describes the enthusiasm within the national women's setup.
00:10The word we use is buzzing at the moment. Everyone's buzzing. I think everyone's got that belief now. Everyone's got that belief that we can actually go there and come away with something, come away with three points or minimum one.
00:25But we, they are buzzing and quite confident that we can go there and get three points. And we, we're not going there underestimating Barbados because we know just as we've been training hard, they've been training hard and, you know, but we go in there with that self-belief in what we've put together so far.
00:44The squad has seen a host of changes from the last one that played in the friendly against Jamaica. It has an almost equal blend of local and foreign base players. And the coach who himself comes from abroad explain how he will find a balance.
00:57I'm of the belief, you know, the best players will play. Like we said it before, the best local players that we believe is there to play will play. The best players who come from abroad will play. And it's about just trying to get that sort of cohesiveness between, you know, the ones who play abroad when they come in and how well they blend in with some of the others who've been in training.
01:22The coach praise his backroom staff for the level of scouting and recruitment as they have discovered talent from various leagues and colleges. And he mentioned a few of those new recruits and what they can offer.
01:33There's Arianna Borneo, Gabby Williams, Simone Elagor, the goalkeeper, Akela Walcott, as well, Liana Hines. Everyone we've seen, you know, that and they've come in and they've trained and they've had an opportunity to play in some of the practice games we've played.
01:56And, yeah, they're exciting in what they do. I think the thing with them as well and all the players who've come from abroad is the honesty that they bring in terms of how they work along with the local ones that's, you know, taken on board the way we want to play.
02:13And they understood how tough it's going to be in terms of the physical output as well. And they've all put their heads down and look forward to working hard.
02:21And on a personal note, Briggs addressed his sudden elevation from assistant coach to now head coach of the national women's team.
02:28I see it as a collective as well. Yes, I'm the head coach, but without the staff that I've got, you know, a lot of things that we, the way we're progressing now, we wouldn't be able to progress.
02:40And, you know, that's both the technical staff and the off-field staff who, like, we have regular meetings and we try to, you know, just solve anything that needs to be solved.
02:51And just to ensure that the progression of the team and the players is first at hand, because that's most important to me as a head coach, that, you know, the welfare of the players comes first and then everything else is after that.
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