Bermuda’s opening Digicel Cup second round loss to St. Vincent and the Grenadines came back to haunt the Island in a big way, national coach Kyle Lightbourne insisted yesterday.

Had Bermuda won their match with St. Vincent last Sunday in Barbados they would have already achieved their goal of qualifying for January’s finals in Trinidad and Tobago, Lightbourne said.

“It all comes down to that first game. . . . a game that we bossed for long periods and should’ve got something out of it. We just played sloppily for ten minutes in that first game, that’s the way I see it,” he added.

Instead, Bermuda must now compete in a triangular play-off to earn the right to appear in the Digicel Caribbean Cup finals.

“Obviously we don’t have a lot of time to prepare ourselves when we return home. But we just have to get right back into it. We will continue to train because we have come a long way,” Lightbourne said.

After handing Bahamas a 4-0 drubbing on Tuesday night to keep their hopes alive, Bermuda entered Thursday’s final Group G contest against eventual group winners and hosts Barbados.

But that optimism was soon replaced by despair as the fourth minute sending off of ‘keeper Timmy Figureido and Paul Ifill’s goal from the resulting free-kick contrived to undermine the Island’s hopes.

“That made a massive impact on our game plans because we were looking to play Jelani (Scott) for certain reasons,” Lightbourne continued. “And it was unfortunate they scored directly from that incident.

“We were a little shaky for about ten to 15 minutes before we were able to come into the game and slow it down. We were able to keep the ball and eventually I knew we would create a chance and someone would put it away.” That someone would be deputising skipper John Barry Nusum who tucked Domico Coddington’s precision cross in the middle inside the near post just minutes before the half.

“I think we showed them (Barbados) that we are on their level, if not better than them. It was unfortunate they scored directly from that incident and in the end it was a hard lesson to learn. But we played 90 minutes with ten men and I thought we were the better team,” Nusum argued.

“If Timmy (Figureido) had not been sent off I think you would’ve seen a totally different game. It was very difficult for us having to play most of the game with ten men.

“But once we re-organised ourselves we knew where to draw the line and defended well and also got in some good positions.

“Therefore, you couldn’t have asked for anything more from the players who gave 150 percent effort tonight.”