Sunday 1 March 2009

Shit game, shit result - South Melbourne 0 Dandenong Thunder 1

The first half was mostly slop. The second half was less slop, if only because Thunder were sitting back on their lead and let us have more of the ball. One could whinge about Rama's farcical own goal... but that would be taking away credit from the Thunder who, while not even remotely technically brilliant, harassed and fought hard for most balls and deserved to be one up at the break though we did hit the post. Second half we had some chances, two missed handballs in the box, an advantage play denied and some bizarre fouls and non fouls... but to be fair, we barely deserved a point in the great scheme of things.

Our strength lies in playing the ball on the ground, as was seen last week against Heidelberg. Once the space is shut down though, instead of sticking to the game plan, panic sets in and we take up long ball tactics. Despite the obvious problems we caused their defence when we ran at them, we didn't stick with it consistently, and started lofting long balls wide and high. We lost too many 50/50 contests, and weren't at the fall of the ball when set pieces dropped in the box. Neither side will get to the finals based on today;s performances; the difference being - and its one we shouldn't forget in a hurry- is that's about as well as Dandenoing Thunder are going to play, whereas we have do have the potential to play far, far better than that... we've seen as recently as last week,

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