Golden Boot man Richards satisfied with performance

Audley Boyd, Assistant Editor - Sport

SAINTE LUCE, Martinique:

BY his own admittance, there was a time when Dane Richards could do nothing to score a goal in the Reggae Boyz shirt.

How quickly things have changed. Amid a bag of tricks and some crisp placement with either foot, the nippy, yet skilful striker transferred his form from his club season in the United States Major League Soccer to the Digicel Caribbean Cup, to score three goals in five games.

Now, he is the proud owner of the Caribbean championships' Golden Boot.

"I feel really good because at one time I couldn't buy a goal for Jamaica," reminisced Richards after a memorable tournament.

"I feel really happy and thank God and my teammates for supporting me right through-out the tournament," he added humbly.

To top it all, Richards' goals enabled Jamaica to successfully defend the title, one they have now won on five occasions. And for the small winger who put in some really huge performance that had the crowds humming throughout the tournament, it was a difficult, yet rewarding achievement.

"To defend the cup is harder and much tougher than winning it the first time because everybody is coming harder at you," he explained. "So I think we did what needed to be done to win it. We weren't excellent, but we did the job and we should be proud."

On a personal note, the former Cornwall College daCosta Cup player got some measure of redemption after his club team, New York Red Bulls, lost the home leg of the Eastern Conference Finals they were expected to win - after taking the away leg - and missed the opportunity to take the title.

Richards, in particular, had also been quite outstanding and never really started scoring for the Bulls until after returning from injury when he started leading his team's charge with at least five goals and a number of assists.

Not an easy task

"Playing a full season in New York and coming to play five games in nine days, that's not an easy thing to do," he said of the DCC tournament. "To end the season in New York without any silverware, this was my last chance to win any silverware. It feels satisfying, it doesn't matter that we won on PKs."

Continuing to reflect on the championship, he said: "Everybody expected us to win every game 5-0 because it's the Caribbean teams, but everybody came to win, those teams came to play too. Those were some rough games and we had to play to the end."

Looking at the final against Guadeloupe, he said: "We started off good, then we managed to score. But if we had kept them off the scoresheet for 10 minutes or so, I think we could have got more goals and then the game would have been easier. But because they got the equalising goal right away they stole the momentum from us."

Richards added: "After the semi-finals where we played extra-time, the back-to-back semi-finals took a toll on us and it showed, it took a toll on us as the legs became tired. They got tired too and after a while it was just a tale of creating opportunities with none of the teams finishing."