Irwin upbeat despite loss to Cornwall
DESPITE SUFFERING a 1-0 defeat to 2016 champions Cornwall College (CC) in their first match of the 2018 ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup competition at the CC field, coach of Irwin High School, Anthony Williams, remains optimistic that his team can get out of a tough Zone A, as there were positive signs.
Solano Birch got the winning goal for Cornwall College in the 62nd minute.
“Since I started coaching, I knew that St James High and Cornwall is a tough group, so I wanted to at least get a point from the former champions, and I tried to play protective around the back,” said Williams.
“For myself, I can say, yes, but it is for the team to really pick themselves up, dust themselves off. So once we go back to Irwin, we can assess the game and chart a path forward. It’s for the boys to grasp what I’m telling them, and once they do that, we can go forward,” he added.
“We no longer want to just participate at Irwin. We want to be named among the competitors. One thing that has been plaguing our progress is that we keep losing players to the bigger teams. Once you work on a youth for the season, hoping to see him around the next season, ‘bam!’, he is gone. So it’s difficult,” Williams lamented.
WEATHERLY NOT PLEASED
Coach of Cornwall College, Dr Dean Weatherly, who was disappointed with the performance of his senior players, said he is aware that lesser teams will look to play very defensively against Cornwall, and that they will have to adjust their game to get the better of them.
“What is happening now is that the senior players think they have already arrived, and they weren’t putting out that extra effort,” Weatherly said.
“If we played how we should have, that would not have been a problem. We train for those type of things because we know now these days, defensive teams usually set up tactically with two lines of defence,” Weatherly said.