***Match Thread*** Tue 12/6 19:15 WES1 -vs- Boxmasters

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Clay - in
Conor - in
Keith - in
Jules - in
Ciaran - away
Cathal - away
Collie - away
Joe - in
Wes - in
Gavan - in
Gar - in
Cormac - out
Dave - away work
Stano - in
David Kelly - in


John
Brendan
Rob

FrankGrimes

2-2 draw but very much 2 points dropped for us. I lost possession sloppily on halfway, but we were got on the hop badly and they punished us. We got back on level terms soon enough and were putting them under a reasonable bit of pressure. Another loss of possession turned into a long ball that skimmed off a head and in - the kind of chance that goes into the keeper's hand 8 out of 10 times, but a sloppy goal to concede. 2-1 at half-time.

We upped it a gear 2nd half and had all the play, they started going long ball and we countered fast and often and had plenty of chances before and after Dave K's beautifully finished equaliser whereas I can't recall any real chances they had. Diving header from Conor went inches wide, I hit the underside of the crossbar in the last minute and Stano had little time to react to the rebound and it went into the keeper's hands, but we had enough possession to have gotten the winner before then.

But our penetration wasn't what it should've been, partially due to balls in front of a runner zipping away from him on the fast wet surface, but really it was down to our habit of shifting the ball sidewards in the final third rather than looking for incisions. Crossing it from deep fullbacks is a good percentage ball to play, but not when we have the ball in the final third and work it back to them as opposed to looking for a through ball. We need to hit the Y button and attempt those thru-balls more often - midfielders should have an assist target just like strikers have goal targets, thru-balls only come off every so often, but when they do they lead to real goal scoring chances.

Shunting it wide to whip it in against a tall defence that were lapping up everything aerial when we had good possession 25 yards from their goal is the safe and comfortable thing to do, but we need to hold ourselves to more ambitious standards and look to show the guile needed to put strikers in on goal more often.

We played very well overall, no arguement there, and John and Brendan were excellent in their first games for Boardeaux, but we do need to focus on slipping it into strikers feet more often to make the breakthrough in games like this - that's the difference between been nearly-rans and real contenders, and we're definitely good enough to contend.

helimachoptor

SHM lost last night... a massive opportunity lost

jebuz

or a point gained on them either way let's pick it up next week, we've been playing some good stuff recently, we just need to get the head up more and as Jules said try mix it up in the final 3rd, we become awfully predictable at times.

FrankGrimes

jebuz wrote: »

or a point gained on them either way let's pick it up next week, we've been playing some good stuff recently, we just need to get the head up more and as Jules said try mix it up in the final 3rd, we become awfully predictable at times.

Yeh, defo a glass half full situation to find out after knowing that we had dropped 2 points that we had actually gained 1 on the leaders.

helimachoptor

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Yeh, defo a glass half full situation to find out after knowing that we had dropped 2 points that we had actually gained 1 on the leaders.

Agreed.. either way it's in our own hands. We are going to have to beat SMH to win the league.

We cant drop points between now and then