Round 21 - CCM v Nix at Gosford (Friday night)

[Forum Phoenix]

In the flesh TBT wasn't very good either. A lot of people calling him the White Appiah.

1st half was the best we have played in 3.5 weeks. The 2nd half we were dreadful again. So 1 decent half out of 8.....at last it's an upward trend.

Kennedy was good.
The crossbar was good.
Golec and especially Baro was good.
Tommy was good. Wout was ok.
DeSilva did very well on the goal.
Hoole was annoying but dangerous.
Everyone else was poor

Pain looked ok in his Cameo as did Melling. Powell was poor.

I’d upgrade Tommy to excellent and Wout to good - he worked till the end and did so many simple but important things without error, that in a team like ours especially, is just so vital in keeping us ticking along and playing half decently. Great understanding with Tommy.

I thought Hoole - while he made some of his typical errors - really tried and did lead by example in attack and attitude. And for his length of field run - that he could easily have gotten away with not tracking the breaking man on - his pressure saved what would have turned otherwise into a certain goal. For that alone I’d be happy with him, but with the assist aswell... a good game from him on balance I thought.

I thought TBT had a solid game overall aswell.

Skapetis struggled against the nix backline but I watched his runs carefully, goes to the right positions and nearly scored that difficult header that with a better delivery he may well have buried. He also showed a desire to receive on the edge of the box, turn and shoot. Which is a lot more than I can say for Powell.

McGing is still mostly doing very well defensively but as an attacking wingback.... he’s not really HAL standard. But hopefully he will continue to grow into what is still a very new role.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

A win against Glory next week - then bring on our bunnies for the next home game.

Yeah but before we destroy the league leaders, we still want to annihilate Victory and get Muscat fired right?

 

[Forum Phoenix]

We don't have anyone else.

I nominate the CROSSBAR!

 

[Hammo]

Good to grind out 3 points . Probs the best the boys have played in a while I think. Hope toms injury isn’t to serious....... where was the band tonight??? Yellow army very quite as well especialy considering the win ...

 

[finally retired]

McBreen was in the box next to us (with Lawrie and Kossie). When I asked him when he was pulling on his boots for us again he said he was never fit enough to match it with the amount of running the guys do now.....but he'd love to work with our forwards......
Okon has the backs working well (apart from Roux ) so PLEASE get McBreen in to help sort the forwards.....

 

[BrisRecky]

well, I thought we were on our way to a 0-0 draw for 44.8 minutes....then DDS did what he did, then i got worried we were gonna snatch a draw from the jaws of victory (as per usual) for the rest of the time, luckily we were playing a team arguably worse than us , WTF has that clown done to the Nix ?....I do know that his told that young Singh fella to play rugby league , fark moi what a clingy individual, talk about a octopus...and the ref , what fkn rule book was he using , the NRLs?....NOW to us
TBT is now TWK,(the white kwabi)
Hoole is verging on near useless,
Ginga gives it a 100%, needs to crank it up a notch
El Capitan = awesome
Golec - almost awesome
Roux - bench rider from now on
DDS - his will has been crushed by OkOut and Jerklic....his got to get out of this friggin mindset of trying to dazzle the opposition ALL the time
Powell - sit him next to Roux permanently
Skeps - knew were he should be at all time , a nice change for a CCM pointman of late
BK - no Matty Ryan , but then who is
3D (Dutch Dynamic Duo) outstanding
I will now quote the famous MUFC coach and builder of the Busby Babes, Jimmy Murphy , the great man said and I paraphrase "Shoot , just shoot, the fans will never hate you for missing, they will hate you for not trying"....

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

Club match report plus write up of Paolo's press conference:

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

 

[MrCelery]

Yeah I was impressed with trent. He played well and looks a better option than Appiah.

Sorry, but Trent (and to some degree all our forwards) appear to follow the Appiah script - great going forward but always turn it over when getting to the box. At least they got it right once last night.

 

[MrCelery]

Great to get the 3 points, but....it was only just, against possibly the worst opposition in the A-Leage ever. Our second half was dire.
Still a long, long way to go before we can go home with a smile.

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

 

[Insertnamehere]

Sorry, but Trent (and to some degree all our forwards) appear to follow the Appiah script - great going forward but always turn it over when getting to the box. At least they got it right once last night.

It's just that last ball, rather than cutting back he should be hitting a cross across the back four looking for the striker. I'd rather see that then losing the ball at the corner of the box.

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

 

[nebakke]

Wait - summat aint right here - Fox had us at something like 12 shots at the end of the first half, how did we go that much backwards!?

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

Fox's match centre says we had 9:
https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/a-league/match-centre/HAL2017-182101/stats

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Sorry, but Trent (and to some degree all our forwards) appear to follow the Appiah script - great going forward but always turn it over when getting to the box. At least they got it right once last night.

Funny isn’t it, you could almost say they played more like a striker and central midfielder out on the wing. Who’d have thought natural wingers prefer to cut back in and run across the field 90% of the time instead of getting to the byline and whipping in a dangerous, or heaven forbid early, ball...

Anyway, forgive my crazy talk, I’m sure they really are true wingers and it’s all just in my head.

Seriously though there was some clear improvement in at least ‘attempting’ to cross... the one time I remember Trent just using his pace to get several yards and put in a cross Skapetis very nearly buried it, and hooles cross ended in a goal. Who knew there’s was more to wing play than just dribbling and running... Appiah- esque indeed.

There were definitely some improved positives in general play upfront but we’re so clearly better at playing in our half than our opponents.

And we have to get our heads up and look. These no look passes to no one must be cut from our game, we’re a long way from having that level of understanding between players or being that sophisticated in our attack, and at present it gives away possession, butchers opportunity and looks beyond amateurish.

Let’s just keep it simpler. Head up and look so you don’t hit the cross/pass straight to a defender and can even better pick out a player from your own team.

Oh and Golec, I like you. But never, ever, back heel again.