SHOULD ST GEORGES get demoted from the National Premier League it would create quite a discussion and a major furore, perhaps, in Buff Bay, Portland, owing mainly to the axing of coach Donovan Duckie.

St Georges are now sitting uncomfortably, joint third from bottom on 39 points with Arnett Gardens, two ahead of second-from-bottom Reno, while August Town are in the cellar at 34 points. There are three rounds remaining with a maximum of nine points for all teams.

Duckie and Harbour View coach Lenworth Hyde Sr were both released by their clubs for the beginning of this fourth and final round, which comprises five matches in two six-team groups that are split between the top and bottom half of the 12 sides.

The timing, from a club perspective, was not bad since the teams appeared to have locked up their positions in the Premier League next season.

However, St Georges have lost both matches since the start of this round when they made the coaching switch from Duckie to veteran league and former national coach Geoffrey Maxwell.

Successful clubs

Depending on context, Duckie and Hyde Sr had done fairly well with the clubs that are at opposite ends of the scale in terms of tradition. Duckie, who has been associated with the more successful clubs - including St Mary's Star Cosmos - from the Eastern Confederation in recent years, spearheaded St Georges' promotion.

They had been out of the league for some time and, at the start, would have appeared a likely candidate for demotion, which is the usual situation concerning teams promoted to the top flight.

However, they emerged the surprise team of the first round and almost qualified for the initial end-of-round final before Tivoli Gardens ended their hopes by winning their all-important battle in the last fixture of round one at Edward Seaga Sports Complex. If Georges had won, they would have played Portmore United in the final. Still, they ended fifth in a clustered mid-table with a good 15 points.

They made another decent tally in the second round of 14 points, finishing seventh in that phase, before tapering off somewhat in the third round, where they accumulated just 10 points.

The Portland team may have appeared safe from demotion at the end of the third round but losses to Village and Arnett mean they haven't moved an inch from 39. Now the pressure is on.

Given their tradition and the fact that they won the title last season, the expectations would have been greater at Harbour View, who are one of the real big teams in the league.

Demotion concerns

Round by round they tallied 16, 17 and 14 points and now occupy fourth in the overall standings on 48 points. They have no demotion concerns but cannot win the league, so they are aiming to finish as high as possible.

Earlier this season, Harbour View went all out and won the Caribbean Club Championship, the fifth title under the tutelage of Hyde Sr, in less than two full seasons. That's exceptional.

Besides the timing, another similarity between both coaches' job terminations is the noticeable slump experienced by their clubs since they have been added to the national coaching staff, especially in the third round.

New approach is needed

Clearly, there is a void and in the new dispensation of professionalism and moves on and off the pitch geared in that regard, a new approach is needed for coaches.

Conventionally, what has happened with coaches drafted for national duties is, unless they are the head coach or technical director of the national senior team, they have generally maintained functions with clubs, which is really a relationship for the national good.

At a professional level this situation is entirely different, with coaches required to give up club responsibilities totally. The inherent conflict of interest and time necessitates such. Professionalism not only calls for but ensures greater commitment through its systems of accountability in the need to get value for money.

In that regard, coaches with national duties will have to rethink while they negotiate packages as that lure should be lucrative enough to facilitate a happy parting through an automatic transition by way of a club resignation to an esteemed job of serving Jamaica, instead of the situations that lead to contract terminations that are oftentimes sour and quite embarrassing.

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