St. Ninian's FC v Craighalbert 23/08/08

The first league game of the season resulting in our first league defeat was obviously not an ideal start for us, but will have been welcomed by Craighalbert, who return to the league after a four year absence. They appear to have some changes in personnel since their last league spell, and looked like a well prepared outfit with a relatively young squad of tall players. Under the banner of St. Ninian’s, we are still looking for a somewhat elusive first win, as Craighalbert were simply hungrier for the three points on the day. We will defeat better teams on our day than Craighalbert, but any game in which we fail to score, or indeed any game in which we concede three goals is likely to end in defeat. It became obvious some way through the second half, when we normally come into our own, that we just weren’t firing on all cylinders this week.   Our pre-season campaign demonstrated so far that we are very much a second-half-team at the moment, and Saturday was no different. Once again we started slowly, and had few chances to show for our first half efforts. When we did get forward, our attacks usually culminated in through-balls to Paul, who covered a remarkable amount of ground during the first half, and most of the second before being substituted. This form of attack was due more to the convenience of having such a quick centre forward than any tactical decision, and although it got us behind the defence on more than one occasion, we simply weren’t able to get enough midfield support for any resulting cut-backs or crosses.   The first goal put past us came just before the end of the first half, which was obviously a less than ideal score line to take into the interval. This would normally have a detrimental effect on the losing team, but we’ve demonstrated our ability on numerous occasions to play a better second half, with a one-goal deficit often providing the kind of motivation we need to raise our game. However this was not to be and despite long spells dominating possession, we lacked a cutting edge in the final third and failed to get on the score sheet.   It’s perhaps some consolation and also our greatest concern that the goals we conceded were to due basic errors; not tracking runners, being caught in possession, a misplaced pass. They’re the kind of problems that shouldn’t prove too difficult to iron out, so long as we train effectively and get our heads right on the park from the kick-off. We are a much better team than was the case on Saturday, with talented individuals and the ability to play well as a team, as we have shown time and again with the good passing football we string together for lengthy spells. I have no doubt that our first win or two will give a boost in confidence and belief which, combined with training regularly, will see us turning our commanding spells of possession play into entire games keeping the ball and creating numerous chances on goal.