We had once again a squad limited by injuries and illness, but a strong first 11 took to the pitch against Gaelic Lions in the Take-San Cup. After a finely balanced 20 minutes Gaelic took the lead with their first real opportunity. But our reply was instant: Quirin laying the ball into the path of Peter who finished clinically. Shortly after that Julian gave us the lead, which was doubled by Quirin shortly afterwards. 3:1 at the break and everything under control, despite the fact that we lost Saii to what turned out to be a very nasty knee injury. We wish him a full and speedy recovery!
After the break we were in cruise control, and created lots of opportunities. Arnaud finally buried one to give us a 4:1 lead at the last water break. All under control, or so we thought. I have rarely seen such a total meltdown in 20 minutes. We went from 4:1 up to 4:5 down - we completely lost our bearing, our attitude, our marking, our passing. This was a very dark 20 minutes.
But we can also take the first 70 minutes and build on that. At times we kept beautiful control of the ball and had Gaelic chasing shadows. But we know how football is: you don't score, you get punished. And this was capital punishment.
We need to work on many aspects of the game: converting opportunities to goals, on our fitness, on our communication - and last but not least, on our attendance at training sessions and games.
Training on Tuesday is a MUST for all, and then we play Latini on Friday night in the next Cup game.