Outside Looking In

The blog could do with a feel good entry, especially as everything is now getting posted as a 'block' of text, making it more painful to read. Although hopefully this is now solved.

The story of Amsterdam is not so pretty.

In the Championship, Lux bore a hole down the middle of our team and made multiple raids to claim a two point win. We were cat in virtually every department. It was our worst defensive performance of the year by a distance. A share of the credit for that should go to our opponents but we didn't do anything to help ourselves. The misery was compounded by losing Ross to a knee injury.

In the next group game, we plugged the hole in the middle with Keary and Ger. We shot out of the blocks but then inexplicably failed to score in the second half and lost by a point, having dominated possession.

Amsterdam needed a result in the final group game and we need a morale boost. Again we grabbed a lead but failed to convert many second half chances and in the end settled for a draw.

3rd/4th was taken at a canter but that was more down to our opponents' lack of will.

Nobody should be under any illusion that what happened on Saturday is a reflection of where we are at. We have so far failed to kick on from last year and if anything, other teams have overtaken us.

There were brief highlights of hope. Of the 13 players used on Saturday, we had 8 different scorers. Three of those scores came from hook kicks, which we have spent a lot of time practicing at training. The foul count was down and the near handed tackling much improved.

The Shield had a similiar start. Lux also put them to the sword early in the day. The team betrayed the principles which we follow at training by reverting to kick passing and thus handed possession to their opponents.

Game 2 saw an adjustment to this behaviour as the lads kept possession much better. Scoring proved problematic and the game finished in a low scoring draw.

This meant that the final group game against Dusseldorf effectively became a 3rd/4th playoff. The lads still had plenty left in the tank at this stage and it showed in the second half as the team pulled away.

All that leaves us in a pretty grim situation today. However, time on this occasion is our friend and hopefully we can hit the reset button during our team meeting on Thursday night. I always bang on about how success is important to sustaining the club. The main reason for that is because when the going is tough, lads will easily find other things to distract them and the whole thing could slowly crumble. We're in a big hole now and the reaction will be key.

Rd 2 - Amsterdam

Updates have been scarce of late for many reasons. In the past I took to this forum to rant and rave and I wrote a few entries in that tone in the last couple of months. They remain unposted however. The month immediately after the first tournament was particularily disappointing. We'd set our stall out to work on specific weaknesses but the response was poor as attendence waned. Injuries to some key players compounded this and we lost a good opportunity to make the necessary improvements. This behaviour frustrates me as we will not progress without greater application. However, I knew the numbers would bounce back and there are still +/- fifty sessions left this year to make up the ground. The result of the poor attendence and injuries meant that fitness levels dropped and that being one area we can definitly control, we spent a good chunk of the last month working on that. Perversely, it's also a quick win in building up the morale as lads really drive eachother on. So we arrive in Amsterdam for Round 2 on Saturday a little unsure of where we are versus Round 1. Of the 27 players travelling, 10 did not play the last day. Injury and other reasons deprives us of some key men but I guess each team suffers equally in that regard. Still, the pieces fall reasonably well into place and we should again have two competitive teams. The last outing confirmed what we all know; Benelux is tough and there may only ever be a score between a good day and a bad day. The last day the Championship team would have made the final in a one point defeat against Lux was reversed while the Shield team went down narrowly in the final. Summer has arrived in this part of the world and it promises to be a scorching long weekend. Let's hope our play follows suit.