***Match Thread*** TUE JUN 18 19:15 WES2 Boards.ie A.B Cycle Factors F.C

Still away for this one unforto good luck lads

Best of luck lads, you can defo go and win this game, might even get to call up to see the match, although not 110% sure If I can.

Score, summary ?

a good draw if we lost id be devastated but its not insurmountable at the moment hopefully results go our way fair play lads on the result, im home thursday and will be back for our next game bleeding dying for one as well!!

Good result against a very strong team. Keeps the league alive, we're very much still in the hunt.

Their style was effective as it meant much of the game was played in our half as it was returned to our half with their decisive clearing of their lines, and then they could take it down if they won the breaking ball in our half.

There'll always be different viewpoints on how to deal with that style of play, but I've seen it work most effectively when the team pushes up as a unit and pressurizes the opposition at source so they can't play any accurate balls, rather than sitting deep in anticipation of where their long ball is going to land. As I said, opinions will differ, but for me the latter doesn't play to our strengths, whereas pushing up does.

As a result, we didn't dictate how the game was played, they did. While it's true to say the ball didn't stick upfront first half, that's looking at only one part of the puzzle. Our defence was so deep the gap between defence and midfield was large and from defence to forwards was huge. That meant that the very rare balls that did make it forward were long balls - it's very, very difficult to take in a long ball like that into the chest/header when outnumbered and there's no teammates within 15 yards for an easy lay off. That's not to say the defence had the option to play a short pass out of defence, they often had to play it long as the opposition had pushed up pressurizing our half of the pitch as they knew the ball would spend most of the time in our half as they pumped it back in each time we played a loose ball forward. So, that's highlighting the Catch 22 that arises from sitting deep: sure it means we have more people back to deal with long balls, but it also leads to more long balls coming in at us as their defence are not pressurized so have time to pick a ball (and they were fairly accurate). The only way of breaking that cycle is to push up and not allow them, particularly fullbacks, to get time to pick a long ball.

Anyways, great to be the ones on the ascendancy in the 2nd half - we got the ball down more often and looked threatening on the counter attack and it was good that we rescued the point, better than being in the lead and conceding.

Thanks also to new players Aaron, Alan, and John, all had a big impact on the game.

At least we know what happens now when you do actually head the ball...:pac:

Good luck with the op !

out of curiosity lads do 2nd and 3rd places get medals as well?

Cheers im good you can keep your participation medals