KINGSTON, Ja­maica – Reg­gae Boyz head coach, Steve Mc­Claren has cred­it­ed the chem­istry with­in the team for his side’s dom­i­nant 4-0 thrash­ing of Bermu­da in their CON­CA­CAF World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing match on Tues­day.

Ja­maica was led by strikes from Bob­by De Cor­do­va-Reid, Shamar Nichol­son and Du­juan Richards, along with an own goal, while Re­nal­do Cephas pro­vid­ed two as­sists that earned them an im­por­tant win and sent them to the top of Group B on nine points.

While he did not get on the score­sheet, Ka­heim Dixon was a con­stant threat for Ja­maica on the night.

Speak­ing fol­low­ing his side’s third win of the cam­paign, Mc­Claren said the strong con­nec­tion be­tween his at­tack­ers made them a dan­ger­ous out­fit.

“We said to the play­ers that it’s noth­ing tac­ti­cal about the way we play. It’s just pure en­er­gy we need­ed, and Ka­heim gives us that.

“Cephas was dif­fer­ent. He start­ed the oth­er two games, and now we got Shamar Nichol­son, and every­body knows what Shamar Nichol­son can do,” Mc­Claren said.

“I thought the chem­istry was ex­cel­lent. We need­ed en­er­gy af­ter Cu­raçao, and Ka­heim and Shamar came on [in that game] and when they came in, they were a re­al hand­ful, and Cephas was al­ways a threat. He is now play­ing first-team foot­ball reg­u­lar­ly and you can see that.

“[Bai­ley] Cadamar­teri and Tyreece Camp­bell played 60 min­utes [against Cu­raçao]. Ka­heim and Shamar played 30, so I just flipped it and re­versed it. I want­ed the en­er­gy from the be­gin­ning, and to car­ry the en­er­gy through,” he added.

Nichol­son, who with sev­en goals in 13 match­es in the qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign is Ja­maica’s top goal scor­er, had strug­gled in re­cent match­es and looked un­cer­tain in front of goal.

How­ev­er, he jus­ti­fied Mc­Claren’s to de­ci­sion to start him by scor­ing the third goal.

“He had a great ef­fect on the game. He helped not just in his ef­fect on the game in­di­vid­u­al­ly, he helped the team in terms of how he pressed, be­cause it is dif­fi­cult for a nine, when you are the first man press­ing. But he did very well. His work rate, how he held the ball up, and he was al­ways a threat in the box,” Mc­Claren ad­mit­ted.

With Leon Bai­ley and De­marai Gray set to re­turn for the fi­nal two match­es in No­vem­ber, Mc­Claren said com­pe­ti­tion for places was much clos­er than it was a year ago when he took charge of the team.

CMC