Cherries Reserve and Under 18 manager Joe Roach saw his side take a first half mauling at Tooting last night, but was pleased how his side reacted and put that massive setback behind them to produce a good second half display.
It was a steep learning curve for the young lads and Joe felt the side plotted their own downfall in the first half, but gave praise to the opposition, "I thought we were too slow moving the ball in the first half. Tooting set themselves out in a particular way which suits them and we were a bit disjointed and a bit predictable. Consequently we gave the ball away needlessly and they countered against us and to fair to them, scored some great goals.
It was a good lesson for the lads because they played against a decent side and a lot of the opposition lads will be hungry to get to where our lads are. I think the lads went out thinking they would OK. A lot of them have just come in to this environment a have professional club badge on and may think that that will see them through. That just doesn't happen and you can get your backside kicked at times if you have that approach.
We had a chat at half time about specifics and we were a lot better. We had six 16 year olds who have never played this type of football before and they came out excellently in the second half in terms of performance. You have to take the game in to the context of what it was. It was disjointed because we also had trialists, but as it progressed, we did quite well, got ourselves back in the game, were a little more purposeful and got beyond their midfield and could have finished one or two opportunities. They lack experience, but every game is a lesson and this one was another different type of one.
Credit to Tooting, they tried to do the right things and got their just rewards for what they did in the first half. I will give credit to our lads for the second half performance. As I said to them, forget the scoreline, the important thing was to recognise how they can progress as individuals and as a group and we did that in the second half."
