While the aim is to gauge the readiness of players, Neville "Bertis" Bell says the focus around the St George’s College Cup, is also to raise and nurture their aspirations and expectations for the upcoming schoolboy football season.

That he said, not only goes for his team, but for the other coaches who are using the invitational tournament, which started in 2011, as part of their preseason preparations to improve their chances of rural, urban and possibly, all-island supremacy later this year.

For this year's staging of the two-day event, host St George’s College will square off against Manning Cup semi-finalist Mona High, beaten daCosta Cup finalist, Central High, as well as Christiana High.

Action is scheduled to begin om Saturday at Winchester Park, with Central High opposing Christiana at 2:00pm, while Mona and St George’s will lock horns at 4:00pm.

On Sunday, Mona and Central High will do battle at 2:00pm, with St George’s and Christiana to meet in the 4:00pm feature contest.

"Interestingly, we have never repeated a team from the very first year until now...new teams every year. Central High are beaten daCosta Cup finalist, Christiana did well, Mona got to the semi-final last year and St George’s College were fifth overall. So the tournament is important for us and the other teams because it provides the opportunity for coaches to take a better look at players that they maybe not certain of and its close enough to the season to take it fairly seriously," Bell told SportsMax.tv.

"Maybe long ago coaches started to look at compositions of their teams, but tournament like these really gives us an opportunity to zoom in on some stuff because we are playing against quality teams, so it helps to gauge players readiness," he added.

All four teams are expected to walk away with something from the tournament, sponsored Derrimon Trading through their Refresh Water product.

The winner will pocket $100,000 and the runner-up $70,000, while the third and fourth-placed teams will receive $50,000 and $40,000 for their efforts respectively. 

St George's are defending champions, with Jamaica College, Wolmer's Boys and the National Under-17 team, among previous winners.

"We feel it is a tournament to look forward to, just a couple of games, but even if you don't win, you still come out with something to go towards your programme," Bell said.

"I don't know about the other teams, but we have a good crop, we retained about 14 or 15 players who played Manning Cup last year and six or seven of those are starters. So we are not in a bad position, but it's pre-season so we will have to wait and see how we perform," he ended.