Asunto: National Team

Timpano > Beauchamp.

I liked the positioning of the far (from Willis) striker. Storey just looked like he had an off day to me, that said he did draw the penalty and started to create some other chances, but his last touch tended to let him down.

Whilst Kilkelly hardly missed a tackle all game I thought he kicked it out straight out an awful lot. That sort of thing can cost you if they get lucky with their throw-in positions.

It was a nice shot from Hirons though wasn't it :)
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very marginally, won't be too much longer until that's reversed. Timpano just has stronger technique to be able to break clear of tackles and I wanted to be able to use that on the back end when their players were tiring.

Yeah, Storey wasn't too bad apart from the final touch but he still appeared sluggish as did a lot of our defense.

Yeah was always going to be a bit like that. Fortunately I felt like I knew where their throws were going since they've played the same tactic and so went for the extra defense. With Howarth struggling for form, Mangos slumping in form and Burns still not high enough form to start I decided to risk playing him. There's a few others I was contemplating but they had very similar stats or were lowish in form.

Yeah was a typical Hirons type goal though, long range screamer but it was a crucial one to give us the 2 goal cushion, just in case they got another golden chance.

Overall fairly satisfied, still minor things to work on defense didn't shift as quickly as I would have liked and allowed them to get past the outside defender a few times. Our defenders pace looked very sluggish, that may be as a result of their strikers pace but then I'm not really sure either.

End of the day that should restore most of what we lost last week and gets us back on track to reach 1900 by the time the qualification draw is made.
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Any chance to play a game against a weak team with our legends, like Newhill, Amien etc?

Beauchamp's a gun ;)

He's only a kid.... don't you worry about him, he'll become one of the greats under my tutelage....

Possibly an option. We've still got a list of players from our debut season and second season to make a competitive game against a lower ranked side.

GK: Ando, Lawton, Necevski
DEFS: Faria,Broxton,Pilic,Campbell,Alogdellis,Garland
MIDS: Murphy,Veart,Baveas,Ozbey,Hudap,North,Wilkinson,Timpano,Widera
ATTS: Amien,Newhill,Hrehoresin,Seaman

That's just a starting few. Thing is a lot of those would have weakened significantly, so we'd have to take on a really weak side, although theres still a few floating around in our 1st or 2nd XI side still which I find rather funny.

We'll see who we end up playing this week first and for sure I'd be wanting to win the game as well to maximise our ranking points, so that's the other consideration to take into account.

I guess if there was actual interest in this kind of a match as well it might influence my decision but primarily at this stage we want to keep gaining ranking points and maintain a 3rd seed and not get kicked back to a 4th seed. I think a 2nd seed is just out of reach after losing to Turkiye so heavily and dropping 50 ranking points but a 3rd seed should be the minimum bar since we're already there.

So if people were interested there might be room to play a match like this but otherwise I'm pretty happy to keep to what we're doing currently.
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2nd seed was out of reach imo. Australia needs to improve the rank consecutive, then maybe one time...still it's hard to gain points when having Italia type teams in the Quals group :/

I always liked Murphy btw ;P

Haha! Hudap, Ozbey and Seaman.

Takes me back.

And this bloody throw in kicking Pilic :P

Haha yes, and fumbling Garland.

Who was that crazy winger/striker hybrid? I remember he scored a really awesome goal from somewhere near the corner flag.

Timpano, North and Widera aren't really from that generation, in my opinion.

EDIT: Brett Parkinson, was that his name? Really can't remember.
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Yup, I think it was Parkinson :)

And Timpano, North and Widera were young guns entering the NT at that time. Also there was Ishia :)

Garland's still trundling around in my team.... he goes alright in the third division :D

they all played in the second season of the NT, a lot of the others played in the first season of the NT but Timpano,North and Widera were all 2nd season NT players, although North more so then the other two.

We're taking on Russia this week. Format still to be decided I'll have a talk with their manager and see what they'd prefer to do. They are currently just above the 1400 points mark so should give us some decent ranking points if we were able to win the game.

Next week (week 12) is our only other week where we haven't got something scheduled as all other weeks are finalized, including week 0 (just haven't updated the press thing as it would require a complete copy paste job as there is no edit option unlike with the club press statements where there is.

I'll get back with more details about the match type. If people have a specific type of match they'd be interested on seeing let me know and if there is a bit of interest about I'll strongly consider arranging a match like that.

each season there was a comp to get people interested in the NT...
I suggest because this year we didnt have one you should still allow one game of that kind where for exemple you take the 16 most active users on the australian forum... They keep the community alive
just a crappy suggestion...

yeah, I'm well aware. This suggestion isn't stupid, I've just been trying to gain as many ranking points this season as theoretically possible and have forgotten about the traditional competition game. I'll see if I can squeeze one out yet.

Which position you have to reach to get the second Seed?
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