NOT UP FOR THE BATTLE - AGAIN!

Subs

• Abbott

If there was ever a game to completely sum up our season then this was it.  All the good things were there to see for 15 minutes followed by a long list of disappointments.

The day began with Jack and Peter pulling out through illness.  Dylan was already injured so once again we called the Henner’s (also injured) to sit on the bench and make up the numbers.  This meant that Mike Cardall and Alex came back into the team after they had missed the Austin game through illness.

I will start with a positive.  I thought all of the lads looked great warming up in the new raincoats.  Very smart indeed.

Many times this season we have started games very well, with composure and good passing football.  The game then goes one of two ways.  If we score 1st we tend to push on and the confidence grows. More often than not we win the game. Or, our dominance doesn’t bring a goal.  We then let a soft goal in and from that moment on our attitude is very defeatist.

This game was almost identical to when we played Lakeside .  For 15 minutes people played their positions and did what was asked of them and the minute we concede we may as well walk off the pitch and go home as nobody on our team believes we can come back into the game.

There are positives to take from the 1st 15 minutes.  Dayle and Ryan looked lively and dangerous and Mark and Matt gave as good as they got in midfield.  We kept things simple and played to our game plan.  Our forwards linked up with the midfield occasionally and we were playing the game in the Coleshill half.  Dayle shot wide, Mike Halloran headed wide and two or three of Mark’s corners could have quite easily ended up in the net.

Then, Coleshill get a goal against the run of play and we completely change everything we were doing well.  A shot from distance crept under Steveo’s body and we were a goal down.

I was looking for an immediate response from our lads.  Instead I got nothing.  The back four completely lost their shape.  Several times I had to shout on and do the basic organisation that I haven’t had to do in a long time.  We often had 4 defenders back with 2 forwards to mark and nobody was picking up anybody.  Or we had 2 on 2 at the back as both full backs went forward at the dame time.

The last 15 minutes of the 1st half were a complete shambles.

A lot of it comes down to common sense.  Twice I saw our biggest player marking a post on a corner??

Our midfield was probably the best thing to come out of the game although we loose far too many tackles.  In the 2nd half the passing was terrible throughout the team and I don’t think we won a header all game.  We were losing the 1st ball and not competing for the 2nd.  A recipe for disaster.

Our biggest problem in this game was our forward’s inability to keep the ball.  More often than not when we got the ball forward Al and Mike we both on the last man, or both in no mans land (not last man but not close enough to the midfield).  This is going to need to be worked on.  If we cannot compete for the ball upfront and hold it, our midfield will never be able to joint he attacks.  We lost the ball so quickly at times that our defence didn’t have time to push out before it was on it’s way back.  On that note another season long problem has been how slowly we push out.  It must be all or nothing.  Not half and half.

The Coleshill goals were pretty much as a result of our own mistakes.  The 1st was soft as mentioned above; the 2nd was a terrible pass and players out of position.  The 3rd half of the team pushing out and half not and the 4th was when two of our players pulled out of tackles that they would have won if committed.

The most disappointing thing of all for me was that only half of our team were up for the fight.  It pains me to see people pull out of tackles and sadly 2 or 3 of our players tried to hide form the game in the 2nd half.  They are in fact only cheating their team mates by pretending to do their jobs but really they are more interested in not getting hurt than putting there foot in where it counts.

Positives from he game were Ryan and Dayle’s hard working performances.  Constantly running up and down the wing in defence and attack.  Matt Barber put in a gutsy display and was one of few players to give everything they had. 

Coleshill are a good team without doubt.  They have big, strong and quick players all over the pitch but in the 1st match and the 1st 15 minute here we have more than competed with them.  It is a shame we rolled over without a fight after losing a goal yesterday.  They are not 3 goals better than us.  They know it, I know it, I just wish more of our players would know it.

Next week sees us go to inform Hanbury.  They beat Lakeside 4 –1 on Sunday and they are above us in the league.  This game is massive for the remainder of our season.  A win sees us cling on to the top 3 but defeat means we will be fighting out 4th 5th and 6th place.

Losing against Coleshill isn’t a problem, it happens.  The way we lost saddened me a lot.

I hope we can forget the last 45 minutes of this game and get back to the kind of form and fighting team spirit that we have shown in recent weeks.

Steve