Interim Reggae Boyz head coach Rudolph Speid has secured his second win, leading Jamaica to a comfortable 2-0 victory over Martinique in their International Friendly at the Stade Pierrre Aliker in Fort De France last Saturday (February 21).

Jamaica are in preparation for the FIFA World Cup playoff against New Caledonia in March, and Speid selected the largely locally based players available in a non-FIFA friendly window.

But despite beating Grenada and now Martinique, these Jamaica-based players will be discarded when the overseas-based players are available, hence these so-called preparation games are meaningless.

Goals by Nickyle Ellis (22nd) and Daniel Green (64th) maintained Speid’s perfect record, and he was satisfied with what he saw from the locally based players.

It was Ellis’ first goal for Jamaica in his second appearance, while Green was scoring his second goal for Jamaica and his first since 2018.

“They moved the ball well.  I just thought that they really stand out in the first half, “ said Speid in a post-match press conference.

“I thought they (Martinique) started sprightly, very well initially, but I think as soon as we scored, they had to dig a little deeper,” he explained.

“I thought they put up a really good fight until we scored the second goal, and I suppose we were just in cruise control. The game would have dropped the quality somewhat when they started to make changes, and ourselves,” he explained.

Jamaica, having made a mess of what was an easy qualification route to the World Cup, will tackle New Caledonia on March 26 in a playoff match in Mexico and potentially Africa’s DR Congo in the final on March 31.