**Match Thread** Mon 22-Sep-08 - St. Colmcilles 19:00 Iona v Boardeaux

Baggly

To be honest, we played very well tonight, so while we can learn from our mistakes, with the same level of effort as was displayed tonight, we can take next weeks team no probs (IMO)

FrankGrimes

Wow, that was seriously impressive tonight lads. Not only are there about 8 or so new players that clearly add real quality to the squad, that improvement in standard is also clearly getting more out of the original squad.

Some really slick passing movements but what struck me was the level of fight in our players to win every ball or at least get a nick to make it poorer possession from them. They only came into it when Conor came off from the middle but on the other hand that gave us the opportunity for some outstanding counter-attacking, much of it through Cieran. A draw was a fair result in one way, but you can also say both our goals were quality, theirs were cheaper. They weren't expecting that tonight - you could see it on their faces.

Watching from the sidelines is always frustrating but I'm glad I saw this game - it really gives motivation to put the work in to get to the level of fitness that will be needed to get into this team. Anyone that missed this game - make no mistake, the team is moving to the next level and getting into this team will demand being at full fitness and on top of your game. That's the level of competition we've been saying we've needed for ages, and we're already seeing the benefits it brings.

_blank_

I agree with Jules.

Nobody walks into this team as we have it now. Competition for places in every position. Genuine competition, and I'll say this now. Fitness will be a major factor in determining a place.

Seriously impressed with the effort put in tonight by everyone, keep that work level up and we'll do well.

We have a good solid middle section now, with excellent players able to play ball, pick a pass and move on to give the next option.

Realistically I'd like to have to players to fill every position, and I think we're fairly close to that at this stage. Solid full backs, strong centre halfs, good intelligent midfielders, pacey wingers and a good mix up front.

I'll be using the squad this season as much as I can. This means two things. In tight, hard games we'll have fresh legs to keep the fight up to the end, also if we are well ahead in a game I can give lads a good run out and they get a chance to brek into the starting XI.

These friendlies have been great for us. Lads getting to know each others, and the turn outs have been great. If we can keep that interest for friendlies, I think the league games will be ok

Redders825

Lads, just to bring ye all down to earth with a bump, fair enough brilliant performance tonight, all positives, it is only pre-season! its vital the level of performance is brought into league action - when the real stuff begins! a good start to the league is half the battle and tonight everyone worked extremely hard!

In my humble opinion the man of the match for me was Dan and Ed, Iona played alot of high balls into the box and they challenged and competed for everything which is all you can ask! Keith was solid also, as was Mickey, back 4 were superb! ciaran up front is quality and a great addition to the squad! personally ive been really dissapointed with my own performances and i know i will have to up it to keep a place in the team!no harm tho!

the one area i feel we can improve on is ball retention. i think we dont keep possesion for long enough and we invite teams on to us as per the last 2 games after leading, also we need to know when to up the tempo of the game and slow it down. tonight when we were twice ahead we were rushing to take goal kicks, throws etc. when were in the lead i think we need to kill the game to a certain extent!i went down tongith because i was trying to waste time! anyway, its not me to judge how we should play, Des is the man, but above is just imo.

anyway i could be here all night! good stuff, the whole squad should be proud! its a good team coming together!

p.s: ill lodge the money this week Des, whats the total amount again?

Thanks

homerjay2005

yep all valid points. and your right conor about the ball retention. but against higher qualaity opposition, its alot harder as they close you down more. we were under the cosh at times tonight, but we didnt buckle.

and yes, your totally right, we need to realise that all the hard work begins in 2 weeks time, however signs are encouraging. we only have ourselves to blame if we dont have a good season. we have a massive squad which will be tested with injuries and work. so everybodys chance will come.

league fees are €120 for the season. we dont collect on match nights for the league games.

btw, the ref tonight, reffed us and Microsoft and he was amazed at how far we have come in 6 weeks. microsoft beat us 8-0 (tho we had a bare 11 with 3 or 4 lads playing with injuries), beat Iona in the semi 11-10 on penalties. They lost the final. so, that tells you how much we have improved.

_blank_

Nice to see another voice on the threads, always welcome.

Redders825 wrote: »

Lads, just to bring ye all down to earth with a bump, fair enough brilliant performance tonight, all positives, it is only pre-season! its vital the level of performance is brought into league action - when the real stuff begins!

I absolutely agree with you Conor, the momentum from the pre-season will help us no end though. We can hit the ground running

Redders825 wrote: »

a good start to the league is half the battle

If only. Our trouble the last couple of seasons has been a mid-season slump, especially last winter. We went 8 games unbeaten until Xmas, then just died. I'd hope with the higher quality squad we have this time round that that won't happen.

Just to explain to you, and others, the size of the squad. We get injuries and people missing games for various reasons. Work, trips away, illness, family stuff, whatever. With a big squad, we can compensate for that.

Aswell, with 15/16/17 lads there on match nights, it gives good options on the bench, mix it up a bit, make it hard for the opposition. You saw the difference when Eddie came on tonight for instance. A completely different option, puts the opposition on the backfoot for a while and we took the lead.

Redders825 wrote: »

In my humble opinion the man of the match for me was Dan and Ed, Iona played alot of high balls into the box and they challenged and competed for everything which is all you can ask! Keith was solid also, as was Mickey, back 4 were superb!

Yep, agreed. Although I'm not one for singling out MOTM or that kind of stuff. I want everyone to feel like they've contributed to the performance, and they did tonight.

Redders825 wrote: »

personally ive been really dissapointed with my own performances and i know i will have to up it to keep a place in the team!no harm tho!

Good attitude, fair play.

Personally I've been impressed with the lads who've played in the middle this season, a couple of decent looking options for different types of games. Solid intelligent play from everyone, which will get much better as everyone gets to grips with each other's play.

Redders825 wrote: »

the one area i feel we can improve on is ball retention. i think we dont keep possesion for long enough and we invite teams on to us as per the last 2 games after leading,

Yep, a few passes either back to the defenders, or sideways wouldn't go amiss. Thing is, on astro it's a fast paced game, and you don't get long on the ball. Having said that, if a forward pass isn't on, the option is always there to go back to the keeper, as Iona showed us tonight. I think we need to take that lesson.

Redders825 wrote: »

also we need to know when to up the tempo of the game and slow it down. tonight when we were twice ahead we were rushing to take goal kicks, throws etc. when were in the lead i think we need to kill the game to a certain extent!

I had a word with Calyton about half way through the second half asking him to slow it down alright. But in fairness, it was his first game with us.

Redders825 wrote: »

i went down tongith because i was trying to waste time! anyway,

I realise that. I took you off because

1. No need to play on an injury, no matter how minor, in a friendly. As you said, it's all about the league in 2 weeks

2. Have a look at other options.

Redders825 wrote: »

its not me to judge how we should play, Des is the man, but above is just imo.

To an extent, yeah. But we've always said, from the very start, that everyones opinion is as valid as the next man. Just once we don't get into arguing amongst oursleves and losing heads.

Redders825 wrote: »

its a good team coming together!

Aye, looks like the mix could be right this time. Fingers crossed anyway.

Redders825 wrote: »

p.s: ill lodge the money this week Des, whats the total amount again?

Just sending you a PM now.

thelepo

A thumbs up from Lepo for tonight. As always took me a few mins to get into the game and had a shocking free kick. I think it was one of those where I just didn't concentrate and put in a shot/cross that ended up as neither.

Getting a new bike soon and moving to Ranelagh which means senor lepo will be cycling everywhere, including to and from games. Looking forward to it.
Really happy with the way things are going now lads. I can't emphasise enough to the new lads how much better we look. I'm sure Sav is reading this now, ol Savvy boy, we're nearly there!

WeAreShels

Very good result lads, fair play. As someone who is just coming back into the squad now, it is good to know that I'm going to have to work extremely hard to get anywhere near winning my place back, which all bodes well for the upcoming season.

homerjay2005

des and michael are going to have some job picking this team. its also going to make players not want to miss games. we saw this already last nite with some quality players on the sideline that missed the last week or 2.

overall, nothing but positives so far anyway

Savman

thelepo wrote: »

I'm sure Sav is reading this now, ol Savvy boy, we're nearly there!

hehe indeed

The Goalie

story lads, well played last night. you put yourselves about really well and played some nice ball.
best of luck with your upcoming season.

helimachoptor

Some good comments there lads. I'll add in my 2c aswell..

We played some good stuff last night, clayton was vocal in net which was good to hear and apart from some initial wayward kicking he played very well.

Across the back line I think we played very well though conceding both goals from set pieces was not on. Also we need to be aware of the short corners, midfielders need to be keeping an eye on this as the FBs are on the posts and the CBs are man marking. Dan was excellent at CB and really dominated in the air. They had a habit of leaving a man behind the defence when we went on the counter which I dont think we'll come up against too often but there was always cover there.

Our 2 CM again played well and passed the ball about very well. From my own view Gav played very well on the RW and deservedly put is 1 up.

Art with another good finish.

One thing about this opposition they didnt really bitch to each other like the other teams we've played, for the most part they played as a unit and were well organised. We havent had any infighting apart from the first game which was hanbags at ten paces stuff and its good to see that we play as a team and support each other. The lads on the pitch also got encouragement from the line which is always good to hear. We made a lot of changes and its good to see we didnt fall apart everyone knew their position when the change was made.

As said above these are warm up games but I think we'll have an advantage when the league proper starts as we'll have had quite a few games under our belts with some good performances and players getting an understanding of each other.

Ball rentention is something we could improve on, I think we all would prefer to attack but sometimes (especially when were winning) its good to slow things down and pass it around.

As each week has went by our fitness is getting better which is great to see.

On another note, we have no league matches in Colmcilles which may/may not affect us it's by far the best surface in the league. Wesley and Blackrock are both windswept hockey pitches
St Columbas is at least a little sheltered from the wind. It looks like there's a couple of new locations on astro.ie.

Hopefully another good result next week will push us on even more and give us a positive start to the league.

Des, will pop the money in thursday/friday this week.

homerjay2005

The Goalie wrote: »

story lads, well played last night. you put yourselves about really well and played some nice ball.
best of luck with your upcoming season.

cheers, best of luck yourselves.

LeixlipRed

Sounds like an excellent performance lads. Well done. Should be available for next Monday if cast comes off tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Although I won't be match fit but hopefully get even a few minutes of football as I haven't played in two months.

FrankGrimes

Just my opinion Martin, but you wouldn't be doing yourself any favours trying to play your way back into this team without any real exercise in 2 months due to injury. Actually, yeh just thinking if it's only a friendly you might just want a run, though to be honest any below par performances will stand out in this team now and linger longer in the memory than before so it's something to consider.

Personally, after such a long lay off (and now not even having one good leg :rolleyes:) this time I'll be taking the necessary time to put the work in to come back match fit instead of trying to play back to fitness. The chance to earn a place in this team that has the potential to win the league is good motivation (fully agree with the above - it's important to believe but not to expect).

Fatmag

Great stuff last night alright lads but we haven't played a league match yet and all our good work will be undone if we don't perform in the first match and bring our good form into it. As Ed pointed out we are conceding too many goals from set pieces but at least we know that now and can do something about it rather than a few games into the league when it would cost us points.
Good point about the pitches too Keith, if its wet the hockey pitches get very slippery and the ball flies off the surface.

homerjay2005

set pieces generally mean we are not defending well as a team on some occasions. we just need more men in the box for set peices and challenge for everything. they had 3 free men last night for their goal. if we cut out conceding from set plays, then we will not loose many games, as its all that some teams have.

one thing also, their quality of delivery was brilliant from corners and free kicks. something that we need to bottle down ourselves, tho we do tend to have 5 or 6 different lads taking set pieces.

Nunu

I watched most of the game from the sideline yesterday and I have to say I was seriously impressed. As has been said we have great new additions to the squad and also this has no doubt brought existing players up a notch...there's real competition for every position on the pitch.

We have never played at this level since I joined up and I am genuinely excited about playing this season...even more so than when I joined up last year and it was all new to me. 9 times out of 10 now everyone is doing the right thing, especially when in possesion. If we keep that level of concentration and determination throughout the season we will be contesting right to the end...I have no doubt about that.

The one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb though is how shoddy we are at getting sorted for corners...for the most part we never really do get sorted. It can be easily addressed though.
Our wingers should go into auto pilot everytime we concede and cut out any opportunity of a short corner. Depending which side it's taken from our winger on the other side needs to cut out any one stealing in on the blindside. Full backs also go into auto pilot - onto either post immediately. Goalkeeper has responsibility for 6 yard box. Our best header of a ball should be spare and his job to attack anything that drops centrally...everyone else man marks.

I know it all sounds very simplistic, but we honestly don't do it and if we did it would drastically cut the amount we concede. Of course sometimes a cross in is pin point and you just can't win the header but there is never an excuse for anyone having a free header the least we should be doing is making that header as difficult as posible for him by bumping him or whatever.

I expanded on this because it's probably the only area we let let ourselves down in last night and as I said can be sorted once everyone knows their role at corners.

homerjay2005

agreed eddie, its something that we must get right on monday night. ill take responsibility for this and we will see how it goes.

was talking about the goal united conceeded on sunday v chelsea to a lad last night and he was blaming berbatov for it. seemingly defenders would normally be a bigger threat from headers so alot of top teams have defenders marking the defenders and strikers marking the strikers. berbatov, who is a far bigger lad than kalou and a better header off the ball, should have followed the run, but he stopped. it maybe something to try, as it was the CH that scored the last night and he was totally free.

a bit of organisation on this and we will be ok, just requires everybody bar one or 2 lads, who would not be strong in the air, to stay back.

LeixlipRed

FrankGrimes wrote: »

though to be honest any below par performances will stand out in this team now and linger longer in the memory than before so it's something to consider.

And I thought I'd done alright over the last few seasons. Thanks for bringing me down to earth el capitan Will be doing my best to get up to full fitness cause I won't be content with sitting on the bench this season. How would I give Ed grief if I'm not out there

FrankGrimes

LeixlipRed wrote: »

And I thought I'd done alright over the last few seasons. Thanks for bringing me down to earth el capitan

Ah save it for Oprah Martin you know that's not what I meant - point I was making is that the standard has gone up a few notches across the board so whereas before some of the more epxerienced players in the squad like ourselves could play short of full fitness (e.g. the compartment syndrome was killing my mobility) and still be doing a decent job for the team, now there's no margin for that as the standard is better across the board so everyone needs to be on top of their game to get into the team.

Personally I'm hoping the surgery has worked and I can run without the legs wanting to literally explode for the first time in living memory, but I've no interest in coming back too early this time as I won't be doing myself justice or adding anything to the team. So I'm gonna take the time to get it right and come back when it's right and fight for my place then. Was just suggesting you consider taking a similar approach.

FrankGrimes

Loads of good points about the set pieces lads. What would be ideal would be to get a half an hour before a game to go through it on a proper pitch. Failing that, talking through it and putting lads in place on a pretend pitch would still do no harm.

Interesting view on the marking. I've had coaches who went for a zonal marking system and ones that went for man marking (was always more successful). Best coach didn't agree with defaulting to fullbacks on posts - fullbacks are generally better in the air than wingers, so why not stick wingers on the posts and let fullbacks win it, unless the wingers are too small to do a job on the posts.

It really does require a loud centre-half (say hello to Ed everybody at the first corner to make sure he's happy with who's marking who. We generally went with either marking the fella you were marking in the game or (what I preferred) matching up based on height/aerial ability. I've seen tall lads who are muck in the air as they won't put their head in amongst a crowd to win it, and likewise have seen smaller lads who'd get a nick on anything. Berbatov is a classic example of a tall lad with no interest in fighting for the team so I wouldn't be relying on him for anything (whatever about Robbie for 20 odd million, 30 odd for him was way to much for me!).

We could do the same and get organised for our own corners too. We had a great system at Parkvale where 3 of us would line up diagonally at the far corner of the D and make different diagonal runs when it's in the air - kicker would give a call which one he was hitting. We scored a bucketload with it cos simple as it sounds a lot of teams just couldn't deal with it.

Oh yeh, have to say the throw-ins on Monday were a thing of beauty compared to last season

helimachoptor

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Interesting view on the marking. I've had coaches who went for a zonal marking system and ones that went for man marking (was always more successful). Best coach didn't agree with defaulting to fullbacks on posts - fullbacks are generally better in the air than wingers, so why not stick wingers on the posts and let fullbacks win it, unless the wingers are too small to do a job on the posts.

This could be a good approach.

FrankGrimes wrote: »

It really does require a loud centre-half (say hello to Ed everybody at

He's certainly loud enough to the ref!

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Oh yeh, have to say the throw-ins on Monday were a thing of beauty compared to last season

No excuse for the foul throws.

Idu

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Best coach didn't agree with defaulting to fullbacks on posts - fullbacks are generally better in the air than wingers, so why not stick wingers on the posts and let fullbacks win it, unless the wingers are too small to do a job on the posts.

My best coach said the exact opposite funnily enough. His logic was that the better defender should be on the post because their natural reaction is to clear their lines

homerjay2005

well we need to decide the next day. im all for jules idea of having a 30 minute set piece set up, but have we time now? there will be a game before us the next night. delivery is crucial also, i remember gav went through a phase last year where he had 4 or 5 games of top class corner deliveries and he had almost an assist ever game. lepo, when he wants to (:D) can also send in a decent delivery from the wings.

we need a balance tho, if we are scoring from set pieces, then the law of averages means we can expect to concede, especially as alot of teams just launch in balls into the box...

helimachoptor

I take it that keeper wont be playing for us again??

homerjay2005

helimachoptor wrote: »

I take it that keeper wont be playing for us again??

ya he is interested alright. we have 2 now i think! so its up to both to fight it out

LeixlipRed

Two keepers? Without training to keep the one not playing interested? How's that going to work?

Nunu

Ye, I agree Martin.

Squads not finalised, but we should only be going with one keeper.

I know Des is going with a large number this season, but surely anything over 18 is too much? It's ok having virtually another starting XI on the sideline for a friendly but for a league game its another matter.
I know people will miss the odd game etc but why not go with a solid 18 who will be there week in week out?...this is not what we did last season - we had a handful of players who must have missed at least half the games because of work/travel?
I know, bar injury, I will definitely be at 16 games...and am currently in negotiations at work to see if I can make all 18:D. I was waiting for fixtures to come out and if I couldn't commit to at least that many games I was pulling out. I think 16-18 games is what should be expected of everyone in the final squad.

If we're going with 20+ fair enough...you won't hear another word from me on it.

The Goalie

janets_on_clubs wrote: »

My best coach said the exact opposite funnily enough. His logic was that the better defender should be on the post because their natural reaction is to clear their lines

That's what we do. Full backs stick to the posts and are less prone to making mistakes than our wingers. We tried that ages ago...didn't work out too well.
I make sure our centre halves grab the biggest players in the box. After that each other player takes the closest man. You saw the damage an attacking centre half arriving late in the box can do.