It was a great atmosphere today at Newark Town Football Club (despite my hangover!) as we all met at the Tom Mann for a club photo-shoot. Most teams had gathered at Devon Park and spirits were high.
We travelled in convoy to visit Cotgrave for today's fixture and Paul Hampton put in, yet again another good team warm up for the boys on a very nice pitch.
Many discussions have taken place this week between the NTFC managers through our manager forum and Facebook as to how to best coach our teams. There has been some great sharing of information. One article that stood out for me was 'too much coaching from the side line' and how it can stifle players performances rather than them freely expressing themselves and learning through their own mistakes. I know I tend to orchestrate things on the side lines and am guilty of shouting too much instruction, so today I made a concerted effort to shut my gob.
The game was refereed by a 75 year old sergeant major type, which was great in one sense (taking no rubbish) but he never left the centre circle due to his age and missed quite a few things that went against us. This really frustrated both teams but our lads more so with his decision making. No matter what could be advised to the boys they still vented their frustration at the ref which earned William a caution, which to be fair, the ref retracted after the game as a lesson learnt exercise. This was an important lesson as they need to understand that no matter how much they moan, the ref will never change his mind.
That said, today was a good day. We started and ended the game with a good positive tempo with only a 10 minute blip just before and after the break. We went one nil up through William after some great work down the left from Jack. William later tried to cross the ball to Shaqueal but a Cotgrave defender intercepted but put into his own net for 2-0. Shaqueal was brought down on the edge of the area a few minutes later and scored a beauty of a free-kick into the top corner. What made it that more special was Ishaan quietly predicted to us on the side line exactly were the ball was going prior to him running up as he says he practices these kicks all the time. What a superb example of 'practice practice, practice makes perfect!!!

After that goal though we went a bit AWOL and Cotgrave pulled two quick goals back. Both were very similar in that the defence didn't cover danger across their line. Rather than go across where the danger was, they remained in their fixed position and simply allowed Cotgrave to advance unchallenged and score.

I completely changed the central midfield and left hand side at half time and brought on all three subs. The second half didn't start too well as we went down to another goal (3-3). I didn't see how they scored as I was busy talking to Rhyce who had climbed over the perimeter fence to fetch yet another ball kicked over (he must hold a Guinness world record for clearing balls outside of his playing areas!).

Losing that three goal lead was the kick up the bum that the boys needed as they went into gear again. I did bring Adam back on into central midfield and push Ben Lease up front where he seemed to bust his all to win absolutely everything around him. It was this and Adam's energy that pushed us forward and William netted again from a Shaqueal cross. He scored again for his hat trick but the ref disallowed out after Cotgrave's linesman convinced him that William had somehow fouled their defender.
I decided to bring William off afterwards as I could see his frustration wasn't sitting well with the ref.

I managed to get all the subs back on again and we finished the game with two further goals, one each for the Sumal boys. Overall the performance was good and our confidence is started to grow. A special mention goes out to Robert in goal, who I thought had another strong game and kept his concentration up all match.

Thanks again to Chris and Rod for taking up the linesman duties, it was much appreciated

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