Having a Friday night game was meant to be something fun and different to do. Well, this year it was different, but probably not as much fun as it could have been!

The team started off pretty well, even if Shellharbour had the first real chance of the game with the ball bouncing off the post. The play was pretty solid and some good pasing. One passage between Dean, Reuben, and Mark up the left hand side was the best I’d seen all year. Unfortunately the team lost their way a bit and couldn’t keep it up. Maybe it was the result of a long week at school and half the kids had an athletics carnival all day Friday.

The Shellharbour Team were pumped up for the occasion as will every team be when they come up against the Comp Leaders. From what I saw the Shellharbour team backed their defence and kept their players up front, there were always three kids parked on the halfway line waiting for the break. Normally we spend so much time attacking that othe rteams fill the defence with players and we end up attacking all game. Most of the time there is only one kid up front and we have always been able to stop any break aways. Shellharbour had 3 or 4 good chances and took 2 of them, while we weren’t able to convert ours. Shellharbour were also a physical side with a few big kids and for once we seemed to get intinidated by that, which we normally cope pretty well with. The pleasing thing is that we were still attacking, still trying to pass the ball and play football, and did create opportunities.

Out of the game we’ll continue to work on the same things, passing the ball early, looking for space and keeping the “shape”. We would have created a truck load more chances if we released the ball one touch earlier. The only negative for me would be the way some of the kids reacted when the going got tough, something we don’t have to deal with too often.

Next week is against another physical side in PortKembla. it will be interesting to see how the kids react to the loss. I’m sure it won’t do them any harm and encourage them to work hard at training.

A big congratulations to Wilson who has been selected in the Illawaraa U10 development squad and trained with them on Sunday.

Garry