An eagerly awaited game to kick start the season, & a lovely sunny day set the tone for our visit to Middleton Cheney. A game I was very much looking forward too & a real challenge for us as coaches & for the boys. All available players were present & our thoughts were firstly to make sure everyone played a part in the game. What we wanted was to try & make sure everyone played a minimum of 15mins but our main aim was to try & push for 20mins without disrupting the balance of the team. I tinkered & thought long & hard on how this could be done & I was absolutely delighted with the system today. All 13 boys played a part in the game, they all contributed & the magic 20mins of match time was achieved.
I thought the game was very entertaining, with some good passing & both teams having significant chances to take the lead, it's funny how goals change games & it was a blow to concede just before half time. All week I had been talking to the players about not giving up if they go behind. I even told them if we do concede to get the ball out of the net & run to the half way line to get the game started as quickly as possible. Josh B made the dash & I had a little smile to myself.
We spoke at H/T about what we could of done better to prevent the goal, the boys reply was we needed to close quicker. Good answer, they identified their mistake straight away. It's easy to say it but for the boys to come up with it is a real positive response & exactly what I wanted to hear. We spoke about our goal kicks, & drop kicks, remember this is all different for them & it will take a little time to perfect. We spoke about our throw in's, take advantage when they make mistakes, back & face when defending is a must, all simple stuff I know but positive reinforcement never the less. I was pleased only 1 foul throw in the 1st half for us & loads for them. Another positive...
Responsibilities were also being remembered after our lack of remembering them against Combe last week, even our positions on the post were much better & Ryan's header was just superb when he was defending the near post. To be honest we had some excellent heading throughout the game, & not just from the odd one or two players. All good & delightful to see. My message was simple, don't ever give up, keep possession, forwards, backwards or sideways, press the ball quicker when they have it, pass the ball quicker when we have it. Express yourselves, communicate, have fun & work extremely hard for each other. No changes were made at the break, with the score at 1-0 we were very much still in the game...
A good account of ourselves were being maintained & not an sniff of anyone giving up.. That's the way boys this is exactly what I want to see for the entire season. After the break both sides were getting tired, the game got stretched on occasions but the boys stuck much better to their shape than they did in our previous matches. Positive...
I must admit I was a little disappointed that foul throw-ins were now creeping back into our game, not so much our feet, but ball behind the head this time. This was because we had little movement & we didn't make the quicker decisions we had spoke about. However even though it was a foul throw ball went to feet. Positive... Remember mistakes are part of learning...
On another positive how many times did we get caught offside & how many times did they...BPJ 0 - MC? no end.
I thought Hayden had an excellent game today, very intelligent with the ball & his fitness from box to box was a revelation...Hayden was named MOTM today, well done & very well played.
Two mistakes took the game from us in the end & a 3-0 score line didn't really reflect the way we had played today & to concede with the last kick of the game just rubbed salt into the wound. Eradicate those mistakes & take just one of our chances early on & the game could of been quite different.. On the whole I was very pleased. Things to work on of course, throw in's, goal kicks will be our top priority. Perhaps I should challenge Lloyd to come up with a game to incorporate these things for Monday as he is running the session.
We may have lost the game today but we won on some many other fronts...
Don't forget it's also our parents evening on Monday after training in the Bure Farm, it would be great to see as many of you as possible to help shape our season. Come along & have your say!!!!!
Hope to see you at training on Monday.
Rich
