FLASHBACK: St James High School's wily midfielder Ajohn Barker (right) about to go past Spaldings High's Lashane Reid in last year's daCosta Cup final at Jarrett Park in Montego Bay. St James High won 2-0. A bumper crowd is expected for today's final. - File

Western Bureau:

After finishing second to parish neighbours Munro College in the competition's preliminary round, not many persons would have fancied St Elizabeth Technical High School's (STETHS) chances of rebounding and making it to the finals of the 2009 ISSA/Pepsi/Digicel daCosta Cup.

However, after surprising the previously unbeaten Glenmuir 2-0 in a must-win quarter-final game and then upstaging the much-feared Garvey Maceo 3-1 in their semi-final clash last Saturday, many persons would now consider it absolute folly to bet against STETHS winning this afternoon's final against first-timers Manchester High.

While the general hype had not always been with STETHS, coach Andrew Edwards and his support staff were not among the doubters. In fact, after seeing the team playing over 30 practice games and losing only thrice, Edwards became convinced that, with the right application, his team was championship material.

"In the practice games that we lost, we were either without some of our key players or we were in a two-games-in-two- days situation," explained Edwards. "We started the season knowing that once we played our best football we had the capacity to beat any team in the competition."

In planning their way through the competition, making the quarter-final was seen as an important marker by Edwards. According to him, once they got into the last eight, he felt they would be able to properly position themselves to take serious aim at adding a third title to their 1974 and 1999 title successes.

enviable record

STETHS coach Andrew Edwards.

"Our self-belief soared in the inter-zone round when we faced a must-win situation against Manchester High and won the game 2-0," said Edwards. "Our confidence got another major boost when we badly needed a quarter-final win against Frome Technical and defeated them 6-0 on their home turf."

With an enviable record of just three defeats in their 17 daCosta Cup games this season, Edwards is absolutely convinced that his team will see no further defeats in this competition, as he plans to walk away from Jarrett Park with the title today.

"After the games we lost, we went back to the drawing board and came back better," said Edwards. "We are now ready to turn all the hard work into success by winning this title."

With a 52 goals for and nine against record, buoyant self-belief, a fantastic goalscorer in Deshawn Brown and more high-quality talent in central defender Dravian Williams, the skilful Akeemo Palmer and the wily Denmark Gillings, the STETHS camp is bubbling with what seems to be justifiable confidence.

"We believe we have what it takes to win this title and we will be going to Jarrett Park to prove it," said Edwards. "Our preseason preparation took us all over the island so we have no fear about playing at any venue."

With solid support expected to roll in from Westmoreland, and St James to a lesser extent, Edwards is expecting that Jarrett Park will be rocking for his team today with overwhelming crowd support.

"We are not under any pressure going to Jarrett Park," said Edwards. "Our focus is just to perform up to expectation and take home this title."