FC Bulleen Lions coach Bobby McGuinness has praised the effort and team performance of his side, despite a lacklustre second half against the FFV U17 Girls on Monday night at David Barro Stadium.
Particularly delighted with Bulleen’s first half – as the hosts ran away to 4-0 lead – the Scotsman heralded his team’s ability to restrict the opposition from playing to their desired possession based philosophy.
“First half was terrific. I thought the energy, the effort and the intensity was brilliant from our girls,” McGuinness said.
“They’re a good side and I’ve watched them a lot of times and if you allow them to play from the back they can hurt you.
“So we worked on a few things on Saturday just to make it a little bit more difficult for them to play out because if they get wide, particularly with the two wide players they’ve got, the can hurt you and it worked great for us in the first half.”
The second interval however proved to be a more balanced affair with McGuinness attributing Bulleen’s deceleration to the rotational policy disturbing his side’s rhythm as well as the usual performance shift that comes with holding an unassailable lead.
“Second half was probably a little bit flat,” the head coach said with Bulleen only finding the back of the net once after the break.
“I think they changed their structure a little bit too which certainly helped them but I think when you’re not used to interchanging you’re making all those changes, the fluency just goes a little bit.
“It’s not that the players coming in are any worse it’s just the guys are playing, they’ve gelled and all of a sudden you’re throwing different things in and it just makes it a little bit more difficult.”
McGuinness though had plenty of praise for FFV’s U17 as the NTC girls prevented his side from playing their usual attacking and fluent brand of football.
“They are the first team that blocked our passing lanes really well tonight,” he said.
“They understand the structure so they were just getting across the front blocking the passing lanes and it was making it a little bit more difficult for us to get our passing game going
“I thought they created a few chances [in the] second half, probably a little bit more composure could have stuck it away and might have just got us up a bit more again.”
McGuinness also took heart out of his side’s ability to capitalise in front of goal on Monday night, something which Bulleen have lacked throughout the campaign.
“That is one of the few games we’ve actually taken the chances we’ve created and we didn’t make as many as we usually do – thats credit to them.
“I thought they defended well as I said they’re structure is good so its hard to break down.”
At the other end of the ground, Lions keeper Frances Land had a superb outing in goals, unlucky to fall short of maintaining a clean sheet.
“Frances had a very good game tonight and I thought we were really solid throughout.”
“Pleased with the performance, pleased with the effort and I think it was a good game. It was two teams trying to play football.”
The result now sees Bulleen return to second spot on the ladder, trailing leaders South Melbourne Women’s on goal difference.