It was a surprisingly calm and collected Donovan Duckie who greeted journalists after watching his Waterhouse team suffer a 0-1 home defeat at the hands of promoted team Cavalier in Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) action on Sunday.

The loss was Waterhouse's second on the trot following a similar result at the hands of Portmore United in the Prime Time Monday night fixture almost a week earlier, but for Duckie, there were enough positives to take away from both results to keep him happy, for now.

Waterhouse has so far managed four points from their opening four fixtures, hardly the start that supporters of the Drewsland-based team were expecting, but Duckie was quick to remind that the RSPL is less of a sprint and more of a marathon.

"It's still early in terms of the overall competing for titles,"Duckie told The Gleaner.

"What is important, if you look at the two consecutive games that we have lost, we dominated the entire second half of both games and yet we have nothing to show except two soft goals against us," he added.

That assessment may be true, but it was also in the second half that they conceded the lone goal to Cavalier's Claudious Blackburn in the 46th minute.

Cavalier dominated much of the opening exchanges of the contest at the Waterhouse Stadium, but Duckie was pleased with his team's reaction after going a goal down.

Controlled tempo

"I thought we did well. The first half was even, we had the same amount of possession as Cavalier. I think they dominated in the first period, but after that, we controlled the tempo of the game.

"We have a couple of players out today (Sunday) and I think we lacked some depth. In midfield, we were very flat and not creating a lot of chances, but we will definitely bounce back," he sought to assure supporters. "Up front is an area that we can also improve on."

Duckie also played down the possible psychological impact of the loss, before sparing some compliments.

"This loss will not affect us at all. They (Cavalier) are a promoted team by name, but we played against very experienced players here today," Duckie said. "They have a quality team, so congrats to Cavalier."

- André Lowe