Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor

Jamaica's captain, Ricardo Fuller (right), looks to control the ball ahead of Peru's Walter Vilchez during Wednesday night's friendly match which ended 1-1 at the National Stadium. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer.

INSUFFICIENT TIME to properly prepare has been cited as the reason for Jamaica's off-key performance in Wednesday night's friendly international against Peru, which ended 1-1, at the National Stadium.

Alexander Sanchez put Peru in front in the 64th minute, while Jermaine Hue equalised at the 78th minute by scoring a penalty, which was hotly disputed.

The Reggae Boyz passed the ball poorly, mainly in the first-half when everyone seemed to be going for the final pass much too early, they could barely combine plays and, but for few spells of individual brilliance, remained largely unattractive.

It may well have been the self-imposed pressure to 'impress' telling on the Boyz, who all knew they were under the microscope as the designated new coach Velibor 'Bora' Milutinovic was videotaping their performance from the grandstand.

The man he will replace and the one calling the shots for the last time in this stint, Carl Brown, thought they needed more days to gel. Eleven of the 18-member squad play for overseas-based clubs, 10 of whom started arriving only last Saturday. Seven of them were in the starting team.

Brillant Jermaine Johnson

"It is time spent (together) that will make the difference," noted Brown, whose interim three-month job ended with the match. "Time spent will iron out these things. What we saw today was the brilliance of a Jermaine Johnson coming on in the second half, Luton Shelton, the speed that he has, Ricardo Fuller, what he can do, and Jermaine Hue.

"As a unit we really didn't flow as we should have, but only time will do that, time spent on the field will iron it out. It really isn't a difficult thing to iron out," he said.

The former national captain and central defender, who has coached the team on many other occasions and is the most successful local coach to have done so with two Caribbean Cup titles and an assistant role to Rene Simoes at the France '98 World Cup, spoke further on the time deficiencies.

He said: "We have seen them play well as a unit. We have seen players out there play well and I have no doubt that in spending time together they can improve tremendously over this game tonight."

Midfield fight

Striker Fuller, the team's captain who started up front with Shelton, admitted as much when asked about their inability to combine.

"I actually think it was a midfield fight going on because obviously we weren't getting much of the ball. It was a dogfight in the midfield between the Peruvians and us," Fuller said. "It took a while before we started to even get a touch of the ball. It started to go well later on in the first half and we finished well.

"Today, it was some individual efforts really because the time wasn't there to gel properly. Today we just had some individual efforts. We just did what we had to do," he said.

Despite not playing well, collectively the Boyz remained competitive against the more than capable team of virtually all left-footed ballers from South America, who played with more poise, precision and control as well as a deliberate tactic to pull the ball-chasing Jamaicans to the middle of the ballpark and then quickly feed the ball through the exposed flanks.

If they had been more decisive in the final third, particularly the 18-yard box, Peru might have scored a few more goals than the 64th minute go-ahead conversion of Sanchez, who got an easy tap-in from less than six yards at the far post after Juan Vargas neatly took a free-kick behind Omar Daley, cut inside the by-line and dished out an appetising grounder across the goalmouth that couldn't be missed.

Jamaica, while floundering as a team, had always threatened with some thriving individual plays through Shelton and Fuller, mostly in the first-half.

That threat was magnified with the inclusion of Johnson during the second half and his mazy run that started at the halfline was loaded with enough trickery to get by a host of Peruvian tacklers and into the penalty box where he went down after being boxed in, leading the way to a dubious call from Caymanian referee Alfredo Whittaker, who pointed to the spot. The Peruvians were furious and launched a bitter protest that briefly held up the match.

When it resumed with the decision never going to be changed, Hue, whose general passing throughout the game for once belied his excellence, appeared as unperturbed by the stoppage as he should have been and blasted home the equaliser with 12 minutes left.

Coach sent off

It was enough time for more substitutions and some emotions to spill over, mainly from the Peruvian bench, where coach Franco Navarro was sent into the stands by the referee.

"For us it's no penalty," Peru's captain, Hidalgo Martin, told journalists in the press conference that followed. "There was no foul, the Jamaican player dived."

It was the first meeting between the teams and Martin said the Jamaicans were strong physically.

"The Jamaica team is a strong team in the physical aspect. They are fit and strong and very speedy in attack," he said.

Martin aid the game was "very difficult" because "Peru is changing", clearly referring to a squad in transition and its hope of getting better.

Like them, the Boyz believe spending longer periods together will enable them to gel.