Match Thread,Boardeaux V Coffin Dodgers, Tuesday Jan 29th, 21.00, Three Rock.

Savman

Geoff had a good game. That's about it. I have absolutely nothing positive to add so think I'll leave it there.

golfsocietyirel

ref did well again... in compared to the following game anyway...

Savman

golfsocietyirel wrote: »

ref did well again... in compared to the following game anyway...

No doubt. Zero complaints here we were the cause of our own downfall...

Savman

Nobody posting so allow me to get the discussion moving. This is just rolling around me head.

I think in the last 2 games, which have been a real struggle, we have not benefitted from a functioning partnership in the middle of the park. Injuries and absenteesim aside, I think I would've liked to see us leave the 2 Centre Mid positions alone. Yes there are 10 players who can play there and yes we are down to the bare bones squad-wise, but it's probably the most important position on the pitch. This, along with a solid Centre Half pairing, is the backbone of any decent team IMHO. It didn't help that we lost Ed early last week and Dan this week, if you ask me it took us bloody ages to get our shape back and there were times in both the last games we were completely all over the place and half the time I had honestly no idea who was playing where. Wingers in the Centre, Strikers out wide, everytime I thought someone was playing in one position it turned out they were actually playing somewhere else. You cannot get any positional sense when you don't know where anybody is.

This is not something we've been guilty of very often, in fact our general shape is one of our stronger points, but for whatever reasons it seems like it's all gone to crap. Looking around the team yesterday the term "headless chicken" came to mind, sorry if that sounds harsh but I'm just rambling here for the purpose of conversation

The system that suits us the most is keeping a solid central line while rotating wingers and frontmen, not shifting around the pitch like musical chairs. I dunno if some of the instructions from the sideline are getting lost in translation or whether some fellas just taking things into their own hands and going roaming

FWIW I have no real bones about playing Centre Mid so long as I know who's beside me, that's the only way you get any kind of understanding going, more often than not this can click into gear the more the game goes on. For example, I found playing alongside Kenny to be completely different to playing alongside Dan in CM. Dan's a great ballwinner, so you have to stick close to him to pick up those loose balls whereas Kenny knows how to spread a pass so I know I could drift a bit. I personally felt that as soon as we were in the ascendancy (Martin O'Neill TM) and getting our shape we either got stung with an injury or else we lost our footballing brain, I can't quite pinpoint which, maybe a bit of both.

For the record, I'm not saying we coulda done any better last week against Trinity, when you can barely field 11 you just have to go with whatever you have. But this week's game there was really no excuse, we had a fair few first teamers back.

Just my thoughts, feel free to chime in one and all, don't be shy.

homerjay2005

spot on, i totally agree with the point that nobody seemed to know where they were playing. lets hope we all learn from it and we regain the composure that we had in the last 6 games. lets keep it simple and try have everybody play in the positions that they are good in.hopefully next week we have 4 or 5 of our stronger players back which should give us a solid base and allow us to have players in key postions that they are used to.

as regards injuries, i should be able to play more that the 5 minutes i played last week hopefully, may try manage a half but i wont be able to kick the ball fully for about 2-3 weeks, my groin is torn and has been for 5 weeks now. dan is 50/50 as he is sporting 2 black eyes, but is able to breath normally, so his nose is mending!

Jules, dave, martin, simon, shay, darran???you all back this week?

Iago

homerjay2005 wrote: »

as regards injuries, i should be able to play more that the 5 minutes i played last week hopefully, may try manage a half but i wont be able to kick the ball fully for about 2-3 weeks, my groin is torn and has been for 5 weeks now.

then you shouldn't play. I know you're trying to help the team but you're not doing yourself or the team any favours by playing when you're not fit. Whether you realise it or not on a subconcious level you won't be giving 100% because you will automatically try and protect yourself.

Combine that with the likelihood of aggravating your injury and missing more games than you would by resting and you can see it's only leading one way. Your commitment is without question, but sometimes that means stepping back and trusting in others.

LeixlipRed

Sounds like a **** performance all round. Bit unlucky with holidays, exams,etc robbing us of a few players. We play trinity and dodgers again. Have to win both of those to show them they didn't play us at our best

FrankGrimes

From talking to Gav & Kenny, it sounds like a very frustrating game with them sitting 10 men behind the ball most of the time, Probably even more frustrating that it seems we would well beat them with a full team.

Things like losing shape, understanding and frequent changes are inevitable when you're unfortunately missing 10 from the squad, with probably 5 regular starters - any team would suffer due to that to some extent and any manager would naturally try to chop and change things to suit what's available.

So, no chance of winning the league, but still plenty to play for to finish the league on an upward trend. 4 wins would give us 37 points, which is a respectable total, but we should definitely push on from there.

Can't wait for the game on Tuesday - FWH just stuff them 8-2 last week. Our first focus is just on the 3 points, but its not hard to tell we'll be looking to prove we're far better than Trinity with close to our full strength team available.