T&T So­ca War­riors coach, and for­mer Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Ter­ry Fen­wick has de­scribed this coun­try’s first-round ex­it from the 2022 Con­ca­caf Qatar World Cup Qual­i­fi­ca­tion cam­paign as a big dis­ap­point­ment on Sat­ur­day night.

Fen­wick was hired late last year un­der con­tro­ver­sial con­trac­tu­al cir­cum­stances by for­mer T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TFA) Pres­i­dent, Williams Wal­lace af­ter the fir­ing of for­mer na­tion­al play­er and World Cup hero, Den­nis "Tallest" Lawrence, who led the team in the pre­vi­ous qual­i­fy­ing fi­nal round of qual­i­fiers for Rus­sia 2018 with­out much suc­cess.

On Sat­ur­day night, the So­ca War­riors quest for a spot at next year’s Qatar FI­FA World Cup came crash­ing to a halt at the first hur­dle, their ear­li­est ever ex­it, fol­low­ing an un­der­whelm­ing goal­less draw against host Ba­hamas at the Thomas Robin­son Sta­di­um in Nas­sau.

Go­ing in­to the match, coach Fen­wick’s men need­ed a win to have any chance of ad­vanc­ing to the next round and to keep pace with Group F un­beat­en lead­ers St Kitts and Nevis which de­feat­ed Guyana 3-0 on Fri­day night, ahead of both teams meet­ing on Tues­day, the fi­nal round-robin match in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

How­ev­er, a mis­fir­ing T&T line-up failed to score against group min­nows Ba­hamas who had con­ced­ed 15 goals in their three pre­vi­ous match­es, two 4-0 de­feats against St Kitts and Nevis and Guyana and a 7-0 maul­ing from Puer­to Ri­co on Tues­day last.

But just need­ed to win by any mar­gin, T&T fea­tur­ing a host of over­seas-based play­ers in the start­ing line-up failed to even score once.

With the goal­less draw, T&T im­proved to five points from three match­es, four be­hind St Kitts/Nevis who whipped Guyana 3-0 on Fri­day, with on­ly one match left to play for each team and on­ly the group win­ner ad­vanc­ing.

In their first two match­es, T&T had blanked Guyana 3-0 on March 25, fol­lowed by a 1-1 draw with Puer­to Ri­co three days lat­er which left them trail­ing St Kitts and Nevis by two points af­ter two match­es, and need­ing to win their re­main­ing two en­coun­ters to top the group.

For the Ba­hami­ans, it marked their first-ever point from World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion since a 6-0 win over Turks and Caicos in 2011.

Com­ment­ing af­ter his team’s ex­it from the World Cup cam­paign, a som­bre Fen­wick, a for­mer Eng­land 1986 World Cup de­fend­er when asked his thoughts on the un­ex­pect­ed re­sult based on how the Ba­hamas had per­formed in the group stage thus far said: “First and fore­most, I’ve got to hand it to the Ba­hamas, they had a game plan and they dug in deep. They wore their hearts on their sleeves, they fought for every ball, and they grind­ed out a re­sult.

Try­ing to find an­swers for his team’s mis­er­able dis­play, Fen­wick, a for­mer win­ning T&T Pro League coach with San Juan Jabloteh and Cen­tral FC said, “I’m very dis­ap­point­ed for us in T&T.

“We squan­dered our chances and the qual­i­ty of play­ers that we have got with­in the squad, this is a big dis­ap­point­ment.

He added, “We didn’t give any chances away re­al­ly our­selves and we cre­at­ed pos­si­bly six, sev­en, eight chances and didn’t con­vert and if you don’t score at this lev­el, teams can come back and bite you.

“And I thought that’s what they did. The Ba­hamas showed a lot of pride and pas­sion played for their coun­try, and the chances that we missed were glar­ing.

With their cam­paign all but over, un­der-fire Fen­wick and his play­ers will now turn their at­ten­tion to their Na­tions League Qual­i­fi­er against Montser­rat on Ju­ly 2.

How­ev­er, with the match against St Kitts and Nevis on Tues­day left to play, Fen­wick said his team will look to give the group win­ners a run for their mon­ey. The team ar­rived in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic yes­ter­day.

He said, “We will be go­ing in­to that match with the same game plan used against the Ba­hamas.

“We ob­vi­ous­ly thought we would have had a bet­ter re­sult than we had, but we have got top class play­ers and we have some good young­sters com­ing through and it’s time to see them, and we will give St Kitts and Nevis a good run for their mon­ey.

Asked if any changes in the team can be ex­pect­ed for Tues­day, Fen­wick replied, “Pos­si­ble we can see a dif­fer­ent for­ma­tion, but I will be look­ing for bet­ter go­ing for­ward, cre­at­ing chances which we did to­day, and our fin­ish­ing was poor.