Bentleigh Greens coach John Anastasiadis shared mixed emotions over his side’s 3-1 victory over visiting Green Gully on Wednesday night, declaring his players need to learn to put teams away.
Whilst Bentleigh’s first half performance was impressive with goals to “A-League material” striker Brent McGrath and Jamie De Abreu splitting the contest, they faded in the second term, nearly gifting an improved Gully side passageway back into the contest.
“I thought we were good [in the] first half. Complete, dominating as usual, possession no problem, two great goals but we could’ve had two or three more,” the Bentleigh boss said.
“[The] second half started in the same manner but after five or ten minutes I don’t know what happened. We just, we sort of fell deep, we didn’t want the ball and we kept playing backwards.
“Eventually they were going to pressure us and in the end we were probably lucky to come away with three points.”
Green Gully looked to come alive in the second half and threatened to mount a comeback but a reflective Anastasiadis said Bentleigh would need to improve on their ability to put teams away, an area that has been an issue recently.
“I thought Gully played exceptionally well for at least 35 minutes of the second half,” he said.
“We’ve got to be better than that and we’ve got to understand that you’ve got to clean teams up as quick as possible and we didn’t do it.
“I suppose it’s been an issue that we’ve got, we’ve had it for at least four or five games we’ve played so we’ve got to be better than that, especially finishing teams off.”
The Bentleigh boss, regardless of the performance, remained pleased with his team’s undefeated start to the season but reiterated that they’ll need to win games consistently if they are to replicate the success of their 2013 campaign.
“We set out to win as many games as possible and go one better than we did last year so if you’re not winning games, you can’t be up there – we’re just going to keep plugging away,” Anastasiadis said.
Bentleigh will look to extend that unbeaten run to six games when they welcome Dandenong Thunder to Kingston Heath on ANZAC Day, with Anastasiadis focused on adding another three points to their tally.
“Dandenong Thunder have got an excellent coach [and] they’re going to be a tough team to beat,” he said.
“For us this year we’ve got all cup finals and we’re going to treat every game like a cup final so we’re going to go out there and play the game to win.”
Bentleigh take on Dandenong Thunder on Friday night as both sides play to keep their unbeaten streak alive. Kick-off at Kingston Heath is scheduled for 8:30pm.