Sometimes updating these stats on a Sunday sucks.
Tough loss Stallions - worse than last week - at least we were steamrolled then, yesterday we just capitulated. I can't believe how quickly we went from 'what an easy win this is going to be' to 'wait, we can't let this be a draw' to ' damn, we are 2 goals down'. In hindsight we/I should have pulled one of the forwards back to central mid to try to shore up the centre when we got in front, but it looked like we were going to run all over them, and then suddenly we were chasing.
Hard to say what's going wrong - easy to look at the D and say 14 goals in 4 games ain't good (almost as many as all of last season), but blame don't rest there. We are putting ourselves under a lot of pressure, almost refusing to hold possession, play simple football and support each other. Still adjusting to the loss of Dan (and Paddy yesterday), but back to basics could be the key.
And it ain't going to get easier - next week the rampant wests who had a good win over the raiders. What a good game for us to turn the season around with though right?
Oh, yeah, nominations for Pony/Stallion here. I'm almost tempted for a split Stallion between Gus and Tom for one of the greatest goals we have ever seen from the Stallions, denied by a bad off side call. God, Pony moments galore, not so much funny ones as bad play ones.
Knowing these sorts of things are much less fun when you are losing, especially over the blog, we got special guest Jules to select the mvp points: Panda, Spencer, Aaron in that order. But you know, another week of a pretty poor team performance really.
9 comments:
Thanks Jules top man. We should be playing basics all the time ball to feet or ball to space for a team member to run on to, very easy concept. Also I thought we didnt make good use of the rolling subs-4 goals in the last 25mins shows that. I think we should have 1 striker v wests and 3 in the midfield, got the inside word that they have a lot of quality ball players in their midfield. The only ponyish moment I can remember is Graeme subbing on with shirt inside out. Still early days though lads heads up we can turn this around.
My stallion would be Corey. He knew his foot was poked but didn't think twice about throwing it into a goal-saving block. If we'd all (myself included) shown that much commitment it would have been a different outcome.
Still, it's done now. We just have to learn from it - and quickly - for next week.
Great call Paul, I had forgotten that. 10 minutes off and he was back on too. Stallion that man!
Don't be too hard on yourself aaron - I dropped in the slot behind the strikers for the last 20 or so. So it wasn't that. Panda's comment (above) makes sense.
"We should be playing basics all the time ball to feet or ball to space for a team member to run on to, very easy concept."
Refusing to hold possession is another way to put it. Puts real pressure on ourselves (especially the defenders) when we cough the ball up easily through the midfield.
But don't think that I am blaming midfielders for losing it. It is a Team thing. On many occasions on Sat, the ball carrier had no-one to pass to. We need to make it easy on ourselves by making that little run off the ball. Too often the only available pass was to a well marked man, or through an opposition player to a stationary stallion.
"SUPPORT THE BALL CARRIER" is my new call.
Replacing the old favourite "ball to feet" initiated by titanic tristan.
Might be worth looking at 4-5-1 v Wests with some man marking in the middle to prevent their penetrating skilful triangle passing. Nothing wrong with playing defensively against a better team, and maybe jinking a goal for the win.
We didn't make any adjustments during the game. Do we ever make adjustments??? My wife who was standing next to and listening to the opposition players said they were targeting our right side as they had pace out that side. I think all the goals started from that side of the field
We should have made an adjustment or man marked their left mid to take him out of the game...so obvious from the side lines.
Ball to feet is always the way to go fellas,
My old man always said, you cannot play football if the other team has the ball, playing to feet and maintining possesion for long periods is an oldie but a goodie..
keep the faith fellas! I can make 2.30 games over the next few weeks, so if numbers are low give me a holla.
Triangles.
Running in circles more like.
Yes, we def need to react faster to when things are happening. People on the sideline need to have a voice and if you see something that needs fixing, let the people on the field know. Spencer is right, it's obvious on the sideline but not so obvious when you're out in the middle.
It wasn't their left mid, it was their striker who played in a left position (no 9). They did the same thing all game - ball over the top. The difference was after going 2 ahead we cruised and allowed them too much space in the centre to hit that good ball over the top and letting their 9 to be 1-on-1 with a defender.
Good call on Stallion and MVP. Happy to volunteer myself for pony - got beaten a few times, missed passes, missed tackles, etc, etc.
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