Bentleigh Greens coach John Anastasiadis admits a slow start hurt his sides chances as they faltered to a 1-1 draw against Pascoe Vale, admitting consistency is a key issue for the title contenders.
The hosts fell behind in the 8th minute but equalised soon after half-time through Brent McGrath, although they were unable to go on with the momentum.
“[The slow start] is just one of those things that I suppose hurt us in the final hurdle,” Anastasiadis said post game.
“We couldn’t get the three points because after that we really dominated and had complete possession but unfortunately didn’t get the three points.”
Bentleigh had a wealth of corners throughout the match but were unable to impact the scoreboard from their set piece efforts; an area that Anastasiadis says needs improvement.
“That’s been a bit of an issue for a long time now, not just this year,” he said.
“We’re working on it and hopefully some game when we have a lot of corners and free kicks that we’ll be able to get on the end of them.”
Despite the lack of finishing touch from set-pieces, Bentleigh were able to dominate proceedings at Kingston Heath, controlling possession throughout the match in addition to their swift build up play which posed a constant threaten to the Pascoe Vale’s defence.
“If [the opposition] put eleven players behind the ball, it’s hard to go forward all the time so sometimes you have to start again, reset, and go again,” Anastasiadis said.
“We did that on numerous occasions and at the end they were just chasing shadows. I know if we keep that performance up, that possession, there won’t be many teams who’ll beat us.”
“We’ve run our statistics and we see that we completely dominated the game.
“Look, I’m proud of the boys. I’m proud of the team and I’d prefer them to play this way and play like last week.”
Anastasiadis said the 2013 VPL finalists would be looking to keep focused with consistent efforts throughout the long NPL season.
“We’ve just got to keep on plugging away,” the head coach said.
“It’s a long season, there’s another 24 games to go so we’re just going to keep hammering away and doing what we do best and hopefully the results will fall our way.”