Boroondara Eagles head coach Fil Simao had plenty to say in the aftermath of his sides disappointing 2-1 loss to Heidelberg that saw them lose ground on the other title contenders.
With a number of first team players missing, as well as the key absence of Racheal Quigley in her normal number 10 role, the task was well and truly set for the Eagles, but they struggled to find a foothold for the majority of the match.
Simao puts the loss down to a number of potential reasons, citing the opposition’s ability to stop them playing their normal brand of football.
“[The loss] was a combination of things. Mainly the opposition stopped us from playing but it was also very uncharacteristic of us,” the Eagles boss said.
“During training we did a lot of work on possession, movement off the ball and creating space for one another and it just didn’t translate this week onto the ground. It did perfectly against Sandringham for example. That’s what can happen, you score six.
“[It was] A little bit them, a little bit us, maybe the occasion, I’m not sure.”
The coach also insisted that they shouldn’t get too worried about one loss after an impressive season to date, with the side ramping up their performance levels against Bundy after some second half changes.
“Like I said to the girls, the way we played the last 30 minutes, if we had played that in the 90 minutes it would be a different story,” Simao said.
“You’ve got to remember the lucky goal that they got, so that would’ve been 1-1. Not taking anything away from them, especially in the first half, they were fantastic. Some really good football.
“They dominated the first half but I though the second half was a lot more even, especially in the last 30 minutes. I though we pressured them well and ourselves, we ended up playing some good football.
“I don’t want to change because of one loss, we’ve been doing the same stuff all year and it’s takes to us really well so we’re not going to change.”
The side lacked their usual zing through the middle of the park and that may have been down to a change in structure; with Quigley struck down with a groin injury pre-game it forced the coaching staff to make some changes.
She started in a more advanced number 9 role and had a midfield 5 supporting her in what was a shift from the usual for Boroondara.
“[Quigley’s] been having problems with her groin. We thought she was back to ok then in the warm up she did warn us that she was in trouble. I had to change players around before the game started – I had to push her into a number nine,” Simao said.
This saw players such as Aliesha Newman and Emma Hubbard shift around onto the wing in the first half before Quigley eventually succumbed to the injury at half-time.
“The funny thing is I spoke to the ladies at the start saying if we do change the structure, nothing changes possession wise and it’s as though those words came back to haunt me because we had to change a little bit,” Simao said.
“There’s players playing where they’re still probably not used to it, Aliesha [Newman] for example was playing left wing. She’s not used to that position so she comes back because she’s more of a defender.
“She catches herself out of position a bit so yeah there’s a little bit less structure that we’d normally like to have but we’ll work on that and make sure it’s back to winning ways.
“Emma Hubbard played. I moved her around a bit, I had to sacrifice her a bit so instead of playing her in a normal number 9 role I had to play her out wide and then I had to play her in midfield so she did a lot of work behind the scenes so to speak.”