T&T strik­er Tyrese Spicer said his team could have done bet­ter in their 2-0 loss to Ja­maica in their Group B Con­ca­caf Fi­nal Round World Cup Qual­i­fi­er at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Kingston, Ja­maica, by tak­ing their chances.

The de­feat, which ex­tend­ed T&T's win­less run to six match­es, left the Dwight Yorke-coached So­ca War­riors third on the four-team round-robin stand­ings with one point from two match­es, five adrift of the un­beat­en Reg­gae Boyz, who won their open­er against Bermu­da 4-0, while Cu­ra­cao, who drew with T&T goal­less last Fri­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Span, is sec­ond with four points.

Speak­ing af­ter the loss, Spicer, who plied his trade with US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's (MLS) Or­lan­do City, said, "It's ob­vi­ous­ly very dis­ap­point­ing to leave Ja­maica with­out any­thing to show for it. I think it was a dif­fi­cult game, and I think we had very good spurts in the game, spells I would say."

He added, "We could have done bet­ter by tak­ing our chances. I think, un­for­tu­nate­ly, the odds were just against us on those chances."

Dur­ing the match, T&T man­aged to put the ball in the back of the net on three oc­ca­sions through cap­tain on the night and Spar­tak Moscow for­ward, Levi Gar­cia, but un­luck­i­ly, they were all ruled out for off­side, the first two, need­ing the Video As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee (VAR) to de­ter­mine the out­come.

Re­flect­ing on the close calls for Gar­cia and the T&T team, Spicer said, "I think Levi's (Gar­cia) first chance, I think it should have been a goal.

"I didn't think it should have been over­ruled. I def­i­nite­ly think the third one was off­side, but I think we were just un­for­tu­nate. I think some of the play­ers, like Wayne Fred­er­ick, hav­ing his first start for T&T, he did re­al­ly well in the mid­field.

"Ja­maica has a lot of phys­i­cal at­trib­ut­es in there and I think (Wayne) did very well. Over­all, as a team, I just think we need to fo­cus on the games ahead; the bat­tle is not over.

"I just think we need to be con­fi­dent and keep our heads up be­cause we could still get 12 points and we could still get through to the World Cup. We just need to stay pos­i­tive. I know all the sup­port in Trinidad, you're very hyped on your sup­port and just keep sup­port­ing us be­cause the game is not over yet.

"We just want to go back out there. We just need to change up a few things. We just have the same pas­sion; we still have the same en­er­gy to­wards the games com­ing up ahead.

Up next for T&T in the month of Oc­to­ber is two away fix­tures against Bermu­da on Oc­to­ber 10 and Cu­ra­cao, four days lat­er, be­fore T&T play its fi­nal two match­es in No­vem­ber at home, first against Ja­maica on No­vem­ber 14, and then Bermu­da, four days lat­er.

Look­ing ahead, the 24-year-old Spicer said, "The two games against Bermu­da and Cu­ra­cao are away and it will be dif­fi­cult, but we have all the in­ten­tions of win­ning those games.

"We still need the sup­port, we still need all the en­cour­age­ment, and we just have to get the job done."

Asked what was the mes­sage from coach Yorke af­ter the games, Spicer said, "He was def­i­nite­ly dis­ap­point­ed. He has high ex­pec­ta­tions for the group, but I think we just need to help him and back him.

"In the games mov­ing for­ward, just keep con­fi­dent, keep push­ing be­cause we have a lot of qual­i­ty. We just need to be­lieve and puff our chests out and de­mand more from our­selves."

Eng­land-based mid­field­er Daniel Phillips, 24, of Steve­nage FC, who was sus­pend­ed for the Ja­maica match af­ter two straight yel­low cards against Cos­ta Ri­ca and Cu­ra­cao in pre­vi­ous qual­i­fy­ing match­es, said he was ob­vi­ous­ly dis­ap­point­ed.

De­spite the loss, Phillips in­stead looked for­ward to the re­main­ing match­es, say­ing, "We are dis­ap­point­ed, we feel that we de­served more from the two games, but we can't sit around and just feel sad for our­selves.

"We have to get on with it now, we know the po­si­tion we're in, have to get four wins and we have to work to­wards that now.

With re­gards to be­ing sus­pend­ed for the match, Phillips said, "It's al­ways tough not be­ing able to be out there and help the team but I know my team­mates are good and ca­pa­ble and I just want­ed to sup­port them off the pitch as best as I could.

"I thought we ap­proached the game well, we were quite con­fi­dent, we were dom­i­nant but foot­ball's a game of fine mar­gins and I feel like we didn't take our chances or our chances were off­side."

The T&T mid­field­er al­so ad­vised the pub­lic not to give up on the team, say­ing, "I think the ded­i­ca­tion is ob­vi­ous to see, we're go­ing out there, we're work­ing hard for the coun­try and game by game we're get­ting bet­ter so now we need you to sup­port us ful­ly so we can go out and get the re­sults."

Look­ing ahead to the rest of the qual­i­fiers, Phillips said, "I think we need to be ruth­less, be crit­i­cal, have a mean streak about us and al­so know that good teams pun­ish you when you give them a chance.

"I think the boys in the camp know how dis­ap­point­ed we are, and we don't want to have this feel­ing again so ob­vi­ous­ly we're go­ing to come again, work hard­er and go again."

With three weeks to go be­fore the next set of qual­i­fiers away to Bermu­da and Cu­ra­cao, Phillips said go­ing back to his club, the aim is to get in the team, play good foot­ball, as many games as pos­si­ble, as many min­utes and build mo­men­tum and con­sis­ten­cy so he can come back to the na­tion­al team with fit­ness and form.