News Report

Coaches thoughts.....

Coach Cliff gives his thoughts on a weekend of mixed results

• admin
• 21 February 2024

Hi Chieftains Fans,

Firstly I would just like to say thanks very much for being a part of our fundraising efforts at the weekend, I’m not sure of the total raised for Cancer Research but I know it was in excess of £5k and that is quite honestly outstanding, so thank you all so much for contributing.

Last weekend was a mixed bag, on Saturday in MK I wasn’t overjoyed with the way we started the game, but from the start of the second period to about the 50th minute I was scratching my head a bit. The boys were doing pretty much everything I was asking of them and we couldn’t get past the goalie who either had the game of his life or is the best goalie I’ve ever seen at this level. In games like that with the shots as they were (83-14) you always kind of hope that the dam will burst, which it did but there’s also a chance you can get ‘goalied’ and he manages to win a game completely by himself, luckily enough we got there in the end and then I believe we scored 3 in around a minute and the game was over.

Regarding Sunday, I feel like I’m on repeat, I’m actually at a point where I don’t know how to keep saying the same thing in different ways.  We started the game well, really well actually, I thought the first period was one of our better periods for some time. In the second period we started getting on the wrong side of the officials, and unfortunately we already know we aren’t operating on a level playing field where that is concerned and it spiralled as seems to be a pattern. 

We ended up killing a lot of penalties for the rest of the game, our penalty kill is good, and wasn’t bad at all on the night but killing that many penalties costs you elsewhere in the game, overuse of certain players, underuse of others, lack of cohesion on the lines as they get jumbled, and the game shrinks in on you as you get through 2 mins and have to try and get back on offence again and then you’re back killing again. Unfortunately we aren’t operating on equal terms and as much as I try and get the boys to understand that, it’s very hard to completely change your game and have to play in a different way to normal or even to the opposition. When we do something that is a genuine penalty, trust me the boys hear about it, there are good penalties to take and when we take a bad one they hear all about it from me, but I am at a loss in games like that as I can’t even criticise the players about a high percentage of them, it’s getting old and it’s getting boring, I’m not a negative person, I don’t moan a lot but I have been moaning about the same thing all year and I’m sick of the sound of myself talking about the same subject. 

We have a weekend off now then back at it the following week, look forward to seeing you all at the rink,

Cliff.