After talking with Dom i think we both had similar games against Dandy Thunder. Perhaps the difference between the teams today was Ronan. Today he was excellent both in terms of saves, general keeping stuff and playing out. Last week the team i coached conceded 5 goals against Northcote without a 'goalkeeper'. How many of these would have been scored with Ronan in goal, who knows. (They were still very good however).
Dom's team would have had very different results yesterday with a goalkeeper no doubt.
But the important thing is the process. It requires hard work, patience and a willingness to accept the difficulties during the process. We lost to Dandy last time in both games. One was 7 or 8 nil. They pressed and physically hammered us then. And tried to do the same again today.
But today on a terrible pitch, there press and aggression was almost useless. Dom said his team got out of the press almost every time and created lots of chances with good play. The team i coach did the same, the press wasn't an issue - the issue for my team is recognizing when the opportunity to move the ball away from congestion occurs. Too often we missed this moment and went back into the press. This is like jumping into the middle of a big lake with crocodiles in it, swimming to the edge of the lake, but instead of getting out, turning around and swimming back towards the center again. The hungry crocodiles would love that.
Our positioning relative to each other, to the ball, to the opposition is improving all the time. The ability of a player to play their role whilst complimenting another players role is improving. The ability to take up good possession based positions and then transitioning into defensive positions is again improving all the time.
I felt my team lost some defensive shape at times, and not all wingers are tucking in quickly enough when needed....
Sometime the 6s lost their shape (which inst surprising at is really hard to get the positioning right all the time - as it has too perfect for things to work) - but it was way better than last week. Remember also that 6's have to be bullet proof. If a 6 consistently loses the ball, then it is a huge problem. We are getting better at not losing the ball when in the 6 role, but still lots of work to do.
But on the whole it was good. In games it used to be glimpses of good play. Now its Quarters. My team had a good first quarter - but dropped in the second quarter as old bad habits crept back into the game. The 3rd quarter saw a personal change in almost all positions - and the boys struggled in the first quarter (and would have been down without a few great saves) but then in the last quarter it clicked for them - and it was another great quarter to finish.
So as said, it used to be glimpses of good play - now we are getting to a couple quarters of good play. That is a big difference.
Also - i have done no attacking play lately. One reason for this is that i need key players to change their mindset about the game and how to play it. The attraction to attack and score just stuffs these attempts up (and some players are tough nuts to crack). But also, the technique and intelligence required to play out (find the angles, find the lines, find the space and link) are almost identical to those needed to get in behind the defensive line. Playing out through a press teaches the lessons need to play in behind. By learning this ability - it makes the overload in attack much easier to see and execute. We are never going to be a team that score stacks of goals (certainly not against a decent opposition) but the goals we do score we earn. We don't play of mistakes. We score because we have manipulated the moments and found a way through. Many of our chances yesterday came from this.
I am wrapped with the mindset of the boys today. Their willingness to adopt a system (which we will use moving forward) and accepting that between now and the end of the season (the next couple of months) the game is about the system not them (and the system comes before individuality). Individuality becomes a natural by product of the system. They are not mutually exclusive but the system must come first.
Having said all this, i l;lastly want to mention that we always have to bear in mind that until we play well against the best teams (Northcote and Bulleen for example) then we are still a long way off where we need to be.
But we are getting there.