So on Wednesday night the Mariners finally had another game and I finally had some more action to talk about in my blog about the Mariners. Unfortunately the product that was presented by the first eleven from the Central Coast was not of the highest quality and led to the Mariners' second defeat of the season. Was this poor performance really due to an extended layoff for the team as reported by Graham Arnold?

How often do you see it in sports and competitions across the world when a team is coming off a bye they take a while to settle back in and appear very flat. I know myself that when I come off a holiday, that first day back does not feel good and I have a real lack of energy. But surely this is not a good comparison, I mean the team did attend training this week right. So should we fans accept the excuse from the coach and players that they performed poorly and looked flat as they had two weeks off before the game. And if this is the real reason for the poor performance what can be done to arrest such situations for the Mariners and what can the fans expect to see next week after yet another bye this weekend?

So all teams will have this same problem the same number of times each this season right? Well no not really, the Mariners had a bye and an international weekend back to back followed by a mid week game. This meant that the Mariners had a gap of 18 days between games. So sure Graham Arnold was happy to have a week off but it seems he was talking about his own personal time rather than what it may mean to the Mariners season. It is great that the players were given a week off from training and were told to ‘freshen up'. So how come they came back looking like an amateur over 35s team against the great uptempo high energy Brisbane Roar team. At the end of the game I would have sworn that Roar were the team that had a week off and the Mariners were a team coming off their second game in five days. 

So what was really the difference between the two teams. Well the biggest differences were enthusiasm, energy and respect for possession. After a two week break you would have thought that the Mariners should have been full of energy and enthusiasm. But even in the first few minutes it was very obvious that the Brisbane team were full of running and the Mariners players were just not willing or able to match them.

The back four (Rose, Wilkinson, Zwaanswijk and Bojic) and Matt Simon were the possible exceptions to this statement. However our midfield were just not willing to put in the runs required to upset and pressure Roar. The other very noticeable thing was that the runs that the Mariners did commit to were not always the smartest or best runs to commit to.

It seemed every run by the Brisbane midfielders was an intelligent and effective cut into space or if a wide player wrapped around the man with the ball he ran into space behind the defender and into a location for a ball to be delivered. When the ball was headed in the other direction every run by a CCM player was either behind a Roar player or back behind the man with the ball. This meant every time the Mariners midfielders were pressured they either tried a pass through the defender or they passed the ball backwards.

Now a back pass has its place in modern football obviously but the problem was all night the front three men only had outlets backwards which takes the ball out of that front third and allows the back of the Roar defence to re-arrange and reset for the next futile raid. In all honesty except for two occasions the Mariners never even looked like they were going to find the back of the net.

The energy and enthusiasm issues are relatively new issues to the Central Coast boys this year, up until this stage of the year they have been pretty enthusiastic although not always as smart as you would like. The other issue that was very evident both in viewing the game and looking over the stats at the end of the game, the boys just did not respect possession. This issue even permeated into the keeper, Matt Ryan almost made the blooper of the year however he was saved by Reinaldo who decided to make that blooper himself by missing the open net.

The players that a team really need to have the most respect for possession of the ball are the four men in the middle of the park. The Mariners midfield of Hutchinson, McGlinchey, Bozanic and Griffiths were guilty time and again of turning the ball over whenever they were in a semi attacking position.

The most guilty of this was Hutch who was playing possibly the most important position on the field for our team. As the top of the midfield diamond in an almost classic number 10 role you would expect Hutch to be holding the ball up and looking to thread the needle to our strikers or distribute and direct play down one edge or the other.

Instead of threading the needle Hutch seemed to be trying for the 90 year old seamstress approach - you know what I mean, hitting everywhere but through the eye of the needle. The only time Hutch seemed to not turn the ball over was when he was passing the ball back to the keeper or the back four. I think the number of times I see good number 10s pass the ball back to a keeper in a game could be counted using one hand even if you had lost most of your fingers. So why was it half the possession Hutch had resulted in a ball back to either the keeper or the back four and the other half in a turnover.

The only real upside for me on Wednesday night was the introduction and play of Amini. Although he did not have the impact of Perez's first appearance in the A-League regular season, he did make the attack look more fluid and controlled then Hutch. He may have turned the ball over but he did it with far more enterprising play and whenever there was a need for an outlet he seemed to ‘Johnny on the spot'.

I can only hope that if Patricio is not available over the next few games that Arnold shows Amini the same support and confidence he has with Matt Ryan. I would be far happier with the Mariners struggling through the rest of the season with the knowledge that it will help build a new younger player rather than watching a player in his twilight and offer nothing more than the juniors. Don't get me wrong, I like Hutch and think he was a great servant but I think his time may be coming to an end.

So to my original question, was this loss due to the 18 days off? Well in part maybe, and the issue of energy and enthusiasm can be addressed easily and blamed on the long layoff. However the other issue of possession has existed prior to this game, but it has not cost the Mariners a game yet. That changed on Wednesday night and this really concerns me for the rest of the season.