A depleted squad selected to turn out for the third game of the campaign proved a trickier contest on the pitch than first appeared on paper.
Joel bravely stepped up to the subs bench despite a sore neck (probably from falling asleep on his Xbox!!). In goal was Kristian with Sam, Alex and Cameron in front of him; Jack, Joe, Daniel and Hayden provided the middle quartet with Jake a sole front man.
The game started brightly with Betley controlling much of the possession and controlling the game, Santos had little threat but despite the possession there were few chances for the Rockets. As the half progressed a couple of chances presented themselves to Joe and Jake but little impact was made. Joel came on for Daniel was having a good game despite him having footwear issues with the support team rushing to re shoe the winger mid half!
Joel was soon into the action with a powerful run and shot. Joe was working hard with Jack in the middle and Hayden was running the wing well. Sam was strong and assured with Cameron resolute. Alex was legendary providing strength tenacity and guile when required. Kristian had little to do as the first half drew to a close.
The second half continued in the same vein with the opposition having a little more of the ball and Betley trying a little too much to run with the ball rather than passing and moving. The Rockets still weren't creating too many chances with a lot of control in the first two thirds of the pitch but needing to give Jake a little more help in the final third.
Santos began to have a couple of chances and Kristian did some good work with a couple of speculative shots. Another couple of chances fell to Rockets and again they were a little unlucky not to open the scoring. As the game progressed tired legs and some weak tackling gave the opposition a bit of belief and a long range shot in the dying minutes found the corner of the net and the Rockets were one down, 0-1.
A slight change in formation and two upfront to try to chase a result didn’t work out, fatigue and time got the better of the boys and the final whistle blew with the first defeat of the season not a fair result on reflection of the whole game.
A couple of lessons to learn from this, we need to move the ball better and play our game of passing and moving. Individually we can't dribble our way around the opposition and we need to make decisions quicker and support each other. Tackling is a big part of the game and the older we get the more physical the games will be. We need to compete for the full 60mins and we can't be second best in winning the ball back. Barcelona work twice as hard without the ball than with the ball - that is not by accident!.
Overall though very pleased that we kept going and we didn’t give up right to the final whistle. A little more creativity and good tackling and we should beat teams like Santos every week.
Well done everyone, and let's move on and learn from the result. There is always next week to train and play a match to improve our skills and put things right!!. We all enjoyed the day, back to winning ways next week!
