Asunto: Result: Away @ Bosnia - Dec 30, 2011

This was our first game as a National Team, so in most ways was a bit of a testing ground to see how certain players performed.

Going into the game, a win was always going to be a tough ask. Bosnia are a much tougher team than us, something I was well aware of when scheduling this as our first game. Take a look at the team profiles to see the vast difference in team strength.

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A loss may seem bad, but we need to look at the much bigger picture and take some positives from the game.

We played normal / high importance to test the Bosnian lineup. Going forward we will play friendlies on very low only.

Goalies

Xavier Nicholson and Dylan Hamilton split the game with 45 minutes each. Both these players are solid performers in their own right and will fight for the starting role during friendly games going forward.

In todays match Nicholson was solid, saving 2 shots-on in the first half of the game. Hamilton faced 4 shots, stopping 2 and letting 2 in.

Strikers

Doherty (90min), Billington (70min) and gordon (20min) shared the forward duties. Against the solid Bosnian defense it was Billington who was the standout player with 1 shot on target and 3 shots wide. Doherty had just 1 shot wide, but a rating of 14, 1 higher than Billington. I see the Doherty / Billington pair as being our primary forward pair and will see how they both go against next weeks easier opponent.

Midfield

Eric Burke is one of our strongest players so it was no surprise that he ended with a rating of 14 and was the strongest player in the center position. He was subbed for Overton in the 66th minute to see how the less experienced and less skilled Overton performed. Beside them Longergan and York split the duties with both performing as expected. York showed great potential and will see time again next week.

Out wide in the midfield Jayden Isaacs and Kai White got the starting duties. Isaacs was solid for the full 90 minutes with just 1 foul committed. White's stats were perfect for the match, so we'll continue with this pairing next week.

Defense

Our center defense is weak at present and will be boosted in the next week with the addition of 1 final player on the roster. In todays game Whittle and Bulger got the starting duties. Bulger was solid for the full 90 minutes and his 2 fouls are more than acceptible considering the tough Bosnian team we faced. Whittle played 60 minutes and was on field and in a defensive position for the first of the Bosnian goals before being subbed for Corbin Pegrum, who matched Whittle's stats for the game.

At left back Keegan Evans played the full match picking up 3 fouls and ended with a rating of 12. Evans is our best wide defender and will need to remain stellar game-in game-out if we're go perform well. On the right wing Tyler Purnell played 55 minutes and put 1 shot on goal (wide) ending with a rating of 10. He was subbed out for Jeffrey Thorley who let the Bosnian left-midfield past him for the 2nd of the Bosnian goals. Thorley has a lot of potential and will see more time going forward to redeem himself.

Key Points:

Our netminding is solid and we have 2 fantastic netminders with a lot of potential we can rely on and use.

The forward pair of Doherty and Billington will gel with more game time and I expect to see some prolific scoring from the 2 of them.

Our defense has a lot of potential and with a few small tweaks and the addition of a solid center back will compete with any team ranked in our range on the ladder.