CUTTERS LOOK TO FFA CUP
INNISFAIL United might have won their first FFA Cup game but it wasn’t all smiles with the Cutters’ coach feeling “unhappy” with his side’s performance.
In a repeat of 2019, when the Cutters beat Douglas United 6-0 in their first FFA cup game, Innisfail again faced the second division Port Douglas side at Castor Park on Friday.
But this time, they only narrowly managed to progress to the next round of the national knockout tournament with a 2-1 win.
Coach Hayden Darveniza said the result was “not a convincing win”.
“It’s early in the year and I think it’s a good warning sign for us that we’ve got to do better,” Darveniza said.
“We’re only beating Port Douglas 2-1, and they were a good team, but we can’t consider ourselves a top four team (in the Premier League). And that’s where we want to be at the end of the year and that’s not a good start.”
He said he couldn’t make comparisons to the team that beat Douglas United 6-0 last year but said there were some obvious factors that played a role in side’s first official run for the year.
“There were big patches through the game where we had possession and maintained possession, so I was happy with that.
“But it was a bit like the previous years with Innisfail – we’ve been pretty inconsistent throughout the games and we’ve also been inconsistent throughout the season.
“Only half the squad we played on Friday night were fit. Only half of that team has been training and even at halftime, it really showed.
“I spoke to some players about that individually after the game. Some of the boys were performing below where they want to be and where they were last year.”
He said he was still unsettled on his final Premier Men’s squad for this season.
“We’ve still got plenty of work to do, I don’t have the 11 players that I want just yet.
“We really need to work on our fitness, but having said that, Friday night was our first game for the year. We didn’t get to play any friendlies and we had some in-house games planned but they were washed out.”
The Cutters will take on last year’s wooden spooners – Southside Comets – at Walker Rd in Round 4 of the FFA Cup on Friday.
“They had a really inexperienced team last year and all those boys will have had one year of Premier League experience now,” Darveniza said.
“They’ve always been a team that’s played with a lot of structure and shape, so we’ll need to match them with that.”