Box Hill United head coach Matthew Shaw has taken their 3-0 loss against Heidelberg United in Women’s State Knockout Cup as a learning experience, with many of his side still fresh to top level football.
With the late scheduling of the clash ruling many first-reamers out of the Sunday afternoon fixture, Shaw had to dip into the depths of his squad, which meant there was a distinct lack of experience in his line-up.
While he was disappointed with the loss, Shaw remained calm once everything was put into perspective.
“They tried hard, they did some nice things that you can go out of that game thinking ‘ok I know the level now that I need to be able to play at, I know that I may not be there yet but there’s some things that I need to work on in my own game, how to move the ball quicker or where to take my touch, when to accelerate rather than waiting for the ball which you can get away with at reserves level’,” Shaw said.
“So it’s good for them to be exposed to this level, ideally we wouldn’t have that many of them exposed at once but you’ve got to use who’s available on the day.”
The defeat was also Box Hill’s third on the trot in all competitions, which is in stark contrast to their four game winning run to start the season.
But Shaw isn’t getting too worried about the trend of results, and would rather focus on ensuring that his side continue to improve on how they work together as a unit.
“We always knew this patch of games was going to be a step up and difficult, we’ll be working to beat [Sandringham] but we got to get bodies on the park, bodies fit and we got to combine better,” he said.
“We’ve got to have more interaction between our midfield and our forward line, get our forward line combining better and it’s just trying to get steady progress to get the team better.
“We work to get better all the time so hopefully the second half of the season or each week we’re building or improving.
“Sometimes you go up and you go back a bit but as long as overall it curves upwards that’s all you can ask of your players. You can’t expect them to become Messi overnight can you.”
As Box Hill prepare to face Sandringham on Monday night, they will be sweating on the fitness of star midfielder Ellie Brush, who went down with an ankle injury early in the second half.
“We’ll see, she’s got to get it assessed,” Shaw said about the injury.
“Hopefully it’s nothing more that a twist but I really don’t know.”