Dragons Frozen Out

Line up: Cameron (GK), Will L, William, Robin, Harry Martlew-Smith, Lennon and Edward.

I’ve purposefully waited a few days before writing this match report as I wanted to try and do it with an objective point of view rather than an emotional one. Not sure I can though! But here we go…

First of all let’s go back to the start of the season and a friendly game against the same team. We lost a very close game 4-6 but showed all the characteristics that we have tried to instill into this team. Pressure the ball, make the opposition work for everything and break with pace and power.

Fast forward nearly three months and here we are facing the same team. But this time we didn’t do what I know we can. No pressure on the opposition, we didn’t win our tackles, we didn’t find each other with our passes, we were slow to react at throw ins, I could rant on….

A really poor first quarter saw us 3-0 down, I told the boys to forget what had happened “Imagine it’s 0-0… get out there just do what we do best, pressure the ball, force the mistake and hit them on the break”. They did respond initially starting to get stuck in and then bang Eldwick string some passes together and score. How do we respond? We stop playing and they bang in another goal. 5-0 at the half way point.

No subs meant that I had little in the way of options but I swapped them around a little position wise (Robin into Defence, William into Midfield, Harry Ms up front and Edward on the right) to try and get them going. One really good run from Harry MS after combining with Lennon and Edward showed a brief glimpse of what we can do. William provided a bit more bite in midfield but we missed him at the back. Better but we conceded another 6-0 going into the last quarter.

Nothing for it boys you’re playing for some pride now. They did try but the damage was done, confidence and enjoyment had totally ebbed away. More of the same with Eldwick dominating possession and passing around us for fun. Two more goals finished us off. Final result a resounding 8-0 defeat.

Yes, we were away on a small astro turf pitch, yes it was early, yes it was freezing cold but the conditions were the same for the Edlwick boys. Where our boys argued and complained, the Eldwick boys played football and got stuck in.

If we concede early they lose confidence so quickly. It actually started on Wednesday evening at training, the boys asked who we are playing when we told them Eldwick Eagles the response was “They’re really good!”, “We won’t win that one!”.

Not sure how we combat this attitude that is seeping into the team. They are defeating themselves and I’m open to ideas, I’m not a psychologist!

One shining light was Cameron who made several fantastic saves otherwise the scoreline would have been much bigger.