Win, lose or draw Reggae Warriors leave World Cup proud

KHAMISI MCKAIN and Abevia McDonald are set to become the latest Jamaica-born players to make their Rugby League World Cup debuts when the Reggae Warriors complete their Group C fixtures against Lebanon today.

Chevaughn Bailey, Andrew Simpson and Marvin Thompson have already featured prominently in the opening games against Ireland and New Zealand and both forward McKain, from Duhaney Park Red Sharks, and winger McDonald, who has played the last two seasons with English League One side London Skolars, plus Jy-Mel Coleman, were the new names in the initial 19-man squad.

McKain is a gym instructor and, at 37, the oldest member of the team, while 30-year-old McDonald began playing at Excelsior Community College almost a decade ago, and former Hunslet and London Skolars half-back Coleman has recovered from a medial cruciate ligament injury sustained just before the pre-tournament warm-up game against Cumbria.

Elder brother and lead coach Jermaine Coleman, a former player and now full-time teacher in London, is convinced the spirit within the camp has been boosted by what has gone before, despite two heavy defeats.

“Against Ireland (2-48), I think the occasion got the better of us and I think we probably played within ourselves – it was the old rabbit caught in the headlights scenario!

“As a group, we reflected on that before we went out against New Zealand (6-68) with a completely different attitude.

“We were beaten down the middle against Ireland and we shored that area up and forced New Zealand to go around the outside of us, which they had the quality to do, but we were up against the number-one ranked side in the world then.

“This is the third week and game, and is an opportunity to put both the middle and edge defences together and come up with a performance which we are super proud of.”

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Coleman has few worries as to the pride that Jamaica take from their first-ever World Cup appearance as, despite scoring just one try and conceding 23, the never-say-die attitude against nations of much greater experience and with many more full-time players has earned many plaudits within the game.

Lebanon, who like Jamaica are nurturing a small domestic competition, provide completely different opposition again.

Lying second in the group after Ireland were beaten 48-10 by group table toppers New Zealand on Friday, Lebanon know that any win, draw or even defeat by less than six points would take them through to the quarter-finals for the second successive tournament.

Should the Cedars progress, their coach of the last two years, Michael Cheika, faces the strange scenario whereby, less than two days after the rugby league quarter-final, he switches codes and travels to Twickenham in London, where he is also the boss of Argentina in Rugby Union’s autumn international against England.

Thirteen of the Jamaican entourage, which is mostly made up of heritage players, face an early rise on Monday morning to fly back home to the island from London’s Gatwick Airport.

Squad: Ben Jones-Bishop, Mo Agoro, Joe Brown, James Woodburn-Hall, Kieran Rush, Khamisi McKain, Jy-Mel Coleman, Michael Lawrence, AJ Wallace,Joel Farrell, Ashton Golding, Jordan Andrade, Keenen Tomlinson, Aaron Jones-Bishop, Abevia McDonald, Greg Johnson, Chevaughn Bailey.