Looking Ahead To 2013-14
Coming out of the rather enjoyable GTT tournament at the terrific Lawrenceville School's facilities the Quick Boys squad began to emerge in a tangible way from the fog of the post-tryout season.
Without too much preamble, some notes from the weekend's experiment:
- Clearly, the size of the field is a significant factor. All the boys will need to attend to their ability to play passes of 20 yards or more on the ground, and drive balls 35 yards or so in the air. While the boys looked to play many good passes over the weekend, far too many were left short, and a substantial number of those turned into the counter attacks which doomed our results.
- Defending was good in many ways. Mainly, while we did concede far more than we'd like, given that the worst break downs came on set pieces and counters, the team defending was pretty good. Any time a team tried to pass or dribble through the side, they found three or more QBs in close proximity. As the back four become more adept at snuffing out counters, this bodes well for the team.
- The weekend provided confirmation that the group we have contains several solid fullback options, all of whom have the ability to play high up the field and contribute offensively. More on this in a bit...
- Our wingers played well, and attacked with determination. When they don't have the ball, however, we'll need to see harder running, more determined running. More on this in a bit...
- The holding midfielders linked the team nicely, but found the bigger and faster opponents very difficult to manage when seeking space (time) to play passes. They need to use the lateral pass to stretch out the defense in order to find the space necessary to play more attacking balls...longer, forward passes require more time to prepare, more time to find the target, and more time to evaluate the positions of the defenders.
- We're not a big team. You may have noticed. Defending wide areas effectively will be a key for this group. If a team is swinging in cross after cross, we'll struggle.
- The team can effectively (and with no real effort at refining the strategy in training...yet) hold a high back line, while simultaneously defending in a low pressure fashion. More on this in a bit.
