The quick start out the blocks by the An­gus Eve-coached North East Stars in their Dig­i­cel Pro League open­er last Fri­day is just one of a few eye-catch­ing mo­ments that au­gurs well for lo­cal foot­ball. Since this coun­try's ex­it from the 2014 World Cup cam­paign af­ter los­ing to Guyana last No­vem­ber, the talk has been most­ly, if not all neg­a­tive on the state of lo­cal foot­ball. But it's not nec­es­sar­i­ly been all that. No doubt progress has been slow but there could be a lot of good things in store this sea­son, for in­stance the emer­gence of the brand new Cen­tral FC coached by high­ly ex­pe­ri­enced Eng­lish coach, Gra­ham Rix. The play­ers un­der him are al­most cer­tain to gain some­thing and the emer­gence of a new fan base in the Cen­tral area is an­tic­i­pat­ed. Al­ways ea­ger to prove his worth, Eve would have gained sig­nif­i­cant ex­pe­ri­ence while at the helm of the T&T Olympic team in which he came up against even­tu­al Olympic Gold win­ners Mex­i­co and semi­fi­nal­ists Hon­duras dur­ing the CON­CA­CAF qual­i­fi­ca­tion phase. He sure­ly will bring some­thing sig­nif­i­cant to the lo­cal Pro League stage es­pe­cial­ly with tal­ent in his North East squad. Ja­maal Shabazz, mean­time, has al­so done his fair share, guid­ing Guyana to a cred­itable 2–2 draw away to El Sal­vador in World Cup qual­i­fy­ing two weeks ago, and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fer­ent con­di­tions in the CON­CA­CAF which will be valu­able to the play­ers un­der his helm at Cale­do­nia AIA. Young Guyanese Tray­on Bobb is al­so a new at­trac­tion for Cale­do­nia af­ter his dou­ble strike against El Sal­vador.

And de­spite a short­age of in­ter­na­tion­al match­es for the T&T se­nior team, the CON­CA­CAF Cham­pi­ons League ex­po­sure for those in the W Con­nec­tion and Cale­do­nia camp is a def­i­nite plus for T&T. The likes of Daneil Cyrus, Shah­don Win­ches­ter, Jan-Michael Williams, Ja­mal Gay, Clyde Leon, Jo­evin Jones and Leslie Rus­sell, to name a few, have all gained from play­ing un­der the tough con­di­tions in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca that can on­ly be pos­i­tive for the na­tion­al pro­gramme. The key to the Pro League's ben­e­fit will be these play­ers main­tain­ing their lev­el of play and in­ten­si­ty which can hope­ful­ly serve to pro­vide qual­i­ty ac­tion, which fans here are crav­ing. Hope­ful­ly this will be sup­port­ed by a well-main­tained, live­ly mar­ket­ing cam­paign. On the in­ter­na­tion­al front, T&T se­niors will re­group next month for the Caribbean Cup and the Gold Cup qual­i­fiers in St Kitts/Nevis while the un­der-20s will vie for ho­n­ours in the fi­nal Caribbean World Cup qual­i­fy­ing round in No­vem­ber. Se­nior in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball could al­so re­turn. Stay tuned to find out more and sup­port the lo­cal game while you're at it.

Jones on top of her game

For­mer 2010 na­tion­al un­der-17 women's team goal­keep­er Lin­fah Jones con­tin­ues to re­ceive rave re­views for her per­for­mances in the Unit­ed States Women's Col­leges League with William Carey Uni­ver­si­ty. Jones earned South­ern States Ath­let­ic Con­fer­ence De­fen­sive Play­er of the Week this month and has con­ced­ed four goals in five games. She has com­bined well with fel­low goal­keep­er Gem­ma Lay­field and Hat­ties­burg Amer­i­can news­pa­per last week­end fea­tured the duo, stat­ing "Jones is a fresh­man from a small town on the Caribbean is­land of Trinidad. She is small­er than most keep­ers, stand­ing about 5-foot-6, and fea­tures the dark com­plex­ion and dark hair typ­i­cal of is­landers. Lay­field is a se­nior from a medi­um-sized city on the Sun­shine Coast in north­east Aus­tralia. She is tall, about 5-foot-10, and blonde. De­spite com­ing from op­po­site ends of the globe, their paths have con­verged in Hat­ties­burg." Carey coach Dan­ny Owens had on­ly good to say about Jones. "They re­al­ly push each oth­er in train­ing. She (Jones) is a phe­nom­e­nal goal­keep­er. She trains like a pro. She puts in a lot of work, takes care of her body and she's men­tal­ly tough. She de­serves every­thing she's got­ten." Carey in­cludes play­ers from the USA, Aus­tralia, Eng­land and Swe­den and of course T&T. "Jones' pro­fes­sion­al­ism, plus her foot speed and quick­ness are her biggest as­sets. She's been a great leader com­ing in as a fresh­man. She does it all," Owens added.

Bateau thanks Corneal, Eve

Na­tion­al de­fend­er Shel­don Bateau left for Bel­gium on Tues­day af­ter a few days home to of­fi­cial­ly be­gin his one-year con­tract with Jupil­er League club, Meche­len. The 21-year-old Bateau com­plet­ed the move last week and is keen to make his de­but for the club.

"I'm very anx­ious. It was a good few days back home for me but cru­cial be­cause I had a chance to re­al­ly spend some time with my fam­i­ly and fo­cus on the task ahead. I'm go­ing on a new jour­ney in my life," Bateau said. "I'm thank­ful to all my past coach­es, An­ton Corneal, An­gus Eve, Jabloteh, Fa­ti­ma, and es­pe­cial­ly my dad and fam­i­ly for my sup­port," added Bateau whose fa­ther, Gilbert Bateau, is na­tion­al youth team train­er.

• Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for the So­ca War­riors/TTFF

Fol­low him on Twit­ter @Pro­Look2006