Green Gully coach Aaron Symons found the positives in his side’s performance despite a 3-1 loss to Bentleigh Greens at Kingston Heath on Wednesday admitting they were unlucky to leave empty-handed.
“I think there was vast improvement from last week’s performance and [I] felt that this evening we were unlucky to not come away with anything but we’ve got to stop giving teams head starts on us,” the head coach said.
“That’s actually a couple of weeks in a row now that we’ve given teams head starts – at the end of the day we were probably better in the second half but it’s cost us,”
Symons, recently promoted to the position of Green Gully head coach, said coaching the Cavaliers is a privilege and is looking forward to improving on the success that he and former player-coach Jeffrey Fleming achieved last season.
“I’ve been working under Jeff and he’s now concentrating on his football, so we’ve just got to continue on what we’ve worked on last season,” he said.
“We had a very successful season last year, since Jeff and I took over we made the finals and won the Dockerty Cup, which we’re proud of.
“It is a proud club, and it’s a privilege to be head coach.”
The new boss was pleased with the way his squad stuck to their game plan along with their improvement in the defensive department but said costly errors ultimately proved to be the difference.
“I thought collectively as a group it was a lot better than it has been, particularly defensively.
“We made structural changes post-Oakleigh game and the way the boys adhered to the game plan, I was actually very happy with but again just a couple of individual errors in the first half and the second half have actually cost us.”
Symons also waxed lyrical about the performances of young Gully players Ratip Cileli, making his first-team debut, and Jem Berkant who are injecting youthful vigour to an experienced Cavaliers side, a sign of things to come this season according to Symons.
“Ratip [Cileli] and Jem [Berkant] tonight were outstanding,” said Symons.
“It’s a debut for Ratip [Cileli], he came on and did really well for the team and the boys understand collectively as well that we’re looking to have a mixture of youth come through as the season progresses.
“That’s the direction the club is going, and we’re proud of these boys too because they actually deserve their spot.”
Gully will be looking to kickstart their season with that balance of youth and experience as they take on fellow under performers Goulburn Valley next week.
“It’s interesting because actually on paper, Goulburn Valley are quite strong,” said Symons.
“Individually they’re quite good and they’ve been unlucky in some games, a bit unfortunate and so we’re not going to take them lightly by any means but we’re now looking forward to the Goulburn Valley game.
“Hopefully [we will] get a good result and continue to move forward from there.”
Green Gully will aim to improve their fortunes when they welcome the Goulburn Valley Suns to Green Gully Reserve on Saturday April 26.