Na­tion­al coach Richard Hood wants to get at least a point from their Con­ca­caf Women’s Gold Cup match against Puer­to Ri­co at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo from 7 pm on Fri­day night.

Hood’s charges en­dured a 6-0 bat­ter­ing to group lead­ers Mex­i­co in their open­ing game in Sep­tem­ber, and now at third po­si­tion on the stand­ings on goal dif­fer­en­tial, he told the me­dia yes­ter­day that they have in­ten­si­fied their prepa­ra­tion which he an­tic­i­pates, will im­prove their per­for­mance tonight.

Hood’s team was boost­ed by three key changes, due to in­juries and his pref­er­ence for more at­tack. Among the changes is Is­rael-based mid­field­er Zoe Maxwell, who came in as a re­place­ment for Re­an­nah Camp­bell, while Abi­gail Moos was called up for the in­jured de­fend­er Kedie John­son.

Vet­er­an goal­keep­er Kami­ka Forbes was al­so left out of Hood’s 23-woman squad for to­day.

The for­mer Po­lice coach faced sev­er­al chal­lenges dur­ing his ear­ly prepa­ra­tion for the team, but af­ter a changed mind­set, cou­pled with im­prove­ments in their game that were val­i­dat­ed by two friend­ly match­es re­cent­ly, Hood said it is now im­por­tant for his girls to get the job done.

“Fol­low­ing the first round of games, we are in the third po­si­tion in the group based on goal dif­fer­en­tial, so it is crit­i­cal that we get some­thing out of this game if not a vic­to­ry. On the day you don’t know what you will get from the girls, so we’re hop­ing to get a good per­for­mance and get the job done,” Hood said.

“I think that the team has pre­pared well, I think that from the Mex­i­co game, we have in­ten­si­fied the prepa­ra­tion in terms of the phys­i­cal part, and in terms of the tac­ti­cal part as well, we have done a lot of of­fen­sive work and we have seen the fruits of it in the cou­ple of train­ing games that we’ve played. So I an­tic­i­pate that we will give a good per­for­mance to­mor­row (to­day) and get the job done.”

The top two teams in group ‘A’ will earn berths in the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup, which will have much more ben­e­fits than just that. The coach said the whole of lo­cal foot­ball can be im­pact­ed. “Asha James has been do­ing a fan­tas­tic job in try­ing to get the girls or­gan­ised and get them fo­cused on the job at hand. They are aware of the sit­u­a­tion and they know that if they get to the Gold Cup, they can open a lot of doors for lo­cal foot­ballers, so we are very much in­tent on fin­ish­ing sec­ond in the group and get­ting to the Gold Cup.”

Mean­while, Puer­to Ri­co as­sis­tant coach Keishawn Cordier told the me­dia tonight’s match will be a chal­lenge for his team, par­tic­u­lar­ly as they are play­ing away. He said the T&T team would have full ad­van­tage and would be go­ing af­ter the win, but his team would be ready to do what­ev­er is need­ed to hold them and get a vic­to­ry.

SQUAD

GOAL­KEEP­ERS

Malai­ka Dedi­er, Si­mone Eligon, Maya Figgen­er

DE­FEND­ERS

Christa Wa­ter­man, Brit­tney Williams, Crys­tal Mo­lin­eaux, Tama­ra John­son, Jonelle War­wick-Cato, Tsa­ianne Fer­nan­dez, Ab­bi­gail Moos, Vic­to­ria Swift

MID­FIELD­ERS

Karyn Forbes (Cpt), Chel­cy Ralph, Chris­sy Mitchell, Re­nee Mike, Naomie Guer­ra, Asha James, Zoe Maxwell

FOR­WARDS

Maria Frances-Ser­rant, Alex­cia Ali, Tsa­iane Le­an­der, Talia Mar­tin, Tal­i­ah Si­mon