Macc must up defensive game
ALEXANDER HANNAH HE Blues maintained their fine start to the season with a first win away from Priory Park when they travelled to bottom of the league Broadstreet – but it was a performance which left coach Giles Heagerty frustrated.
Despite his team getting another bonus point win, Heagerty was less than impressed by his team’s defensive efforts. The Blues won 37-53, a fine attacking effort, but a defensive display that worried the man at the helm.
“Five points on the road, three on the bounce, we’ll take that. But the manner of the performance left a little to be desired,” he said.
“Conceding thirty seven points isn’t good, and that’s going to take some reviewing. We’ve got a frustrated group of players again. We looked great when we kept the ball, when we kept it we scored tries, but we coughed up possession far to easily and opted out of tackling in defence.”
Despite the defensive frailties, Heagerty was quick to pick up on some fine attacking moves and great individual performances, including Elliot Brierley who grabbed a hat-trick.
“We’ve scored some really good tries, a couple of great individual scores. Rhodri Mayor had a great game, Elliot Brierley
Tscored a hat-trick and Elliot Millar-Mills was fantastic as well, he just keeps getting better and better. When we stuck to our shape and game plan we looked good and effective. People are trying to do things outside the ordinary – the ordinary is nice sometimes, people just need to do their job, when we go away from that, that’s when errors tend to sneak in.”
The Blues saw yellow twice in the game, which equates to 14 men for 20 minutes. It was another element that frustrated Heagerty, who felt ill discipline like that could have cost them in other games.
Macclesfield face South Leicester at home this weekend, and Giles is looking forward to another tough test against a team that come into the game in fine form.
“South Leicester will be very tough, especially if we defend like we did against Broadstreet. We’re masters of our own demise at the moment, that’s down to
‘We’re masters of our own demise at the moment, that’s down to individuals to sort out’
individuals to sort out. It could be our toughest game yet, they come in on pretty good form. We’ve got to concentrate on us though, individuals need to get clued up and stay switched on for longer periods of the game. When that happens, we’ve seen in spells what we’re fully capable of.”