They only good thing about tonight was that I wasn’t there to watch it live.
It was painful enough to watch it on TV.
We have enough proof points now to know - not just this year, but over nearly 2 1/2 years - that Scott’s gameplan is able to eke out small wins against weak opposition (whilst others slaughter them) but is utterly dismantled by the best sides to the point of embarrassment.
It was interesting seeing a camera shot of Barham in the stands, late in the game, and watch him stare pensively into the distance. I am hoping he was thinking the same thing that I was. Scott’s gameplan cannot take us forward and either he needs to change it or he needs to be changed.
As always against the best sides, I get utterly frustrated by our players at a stoppage wanting to handball to a stationary teammate under more pressure and the ball gets turned over when they had a chance just to kick the ball forward. It cost us multiple goals tonight. It also happened when we were streaming out of distance - players stopping and wanting to handball. I can understand doing a sideways chip if there are no options up the field and moving the ball gradually by foot but we were obsessed with handballing tonight - then sometimes kicking to low probability options in the corridor that weren’t on. We almost went out of our way to choose the worst option. Then again, that’s the inferred and real pressure the better sides in the competition bring that the bottom sides don’t and allow us to (just0 get away with poor choices/execution.
Our midfield was utterly putrid, especially Merrett. it staggered me that El Hawley got subbed out at half time - certainly not our worst player in H1 - for Shiel whose second half was terrible and kicking worse. if anyone should have been subbed it was either Caldwell or Setterfield. Both were far to reactive on Libba and Bont and thus were continuously led to the ball where they couldn’t prevent them from disposing it. Last year, Durham beat the Bont by getting to the ball first and charging straight ahead.
We went out of our way to ensure Bailey Dale could set a record tonight - 49 disposals. On TV it seemed he didn’t follow our HF up the ground and stayed back and thus cleaned up. Ditto ata few stoppages it seemed. At no stage did Scott change things and put Setterfield on him as a tagger to stop his drive.
Tonight also showed we can’t play two negating mids in Caldwell and Setterfield. Tsatas would have made us a better side tonight and Setterfield needs to make way. Tsatas is a natural “see ball, get ball” mid and we badly needed that tonight. He needs to come in. Shiel needs to join Setterfield on the sidelines.
Our percentage shows us as the 5th worst team in the comp which is about right - a combination of being a young side overall, older players replacing injured and better younger players, the coach’s obsession with playing Shiel and the coaches gameplan which repeatedly and demonstratively can only eke out small wins against bottom sides but lead to big losses against the best sides.