Tara Murray
Werribee needs to continue focusing on what it can control in the Hockey Victoria Vic league 1 men’s competition.
The Tigers sit seventh as the competition approaches the halfway mark in their first season under Brendan Denning.
Denning said they were tracking along OK, with still some room for improvement.
“Looking at the wins or losses, we’re not where we want to be at the halfway mark,” he said.
“We’ve had two below par performances out of the eight games. We’ve had two close losses which were 2-1, 3-2.
“We’re happy with how competitive we have been with the top end. We need to find one and a half goals per game to get more wins.”
Denning said those goals would need to come from scoring a bit more, but also conceding less goals.
He said it had been a different challenge early in the season, having never coached in this division.
“I’ve been learning who is who in the zoo,” he said. “I haven’t experienced these teams before and who is prominent at this level.
“We’re looking at what we started the season doing and what our strengths are and the potential weaknesses and game plan.
“The last few weeks there’s been definitive signs that we are more comfortable in our skin.”
Denning said the biggest thing for the side was focusing on their style of hockey and not complicating it too much.
He said when they do that they can match it with the top teams in the competition.
“We have to control the things that we can,” he said.
“We had a poor game two weeks ago against a lower placed team and got beaten very reasonably.
“We got talking about things we are good at doing and things we can do.
“The simple things we do at training and we played like we trained and beat one of the top teams.”
The Tigers have one more match before they have played every team once. Denning said it was about starting again and learning from the first time round.
“We’re not worrying about the result and outcome,” he said.
“Control what we can control and we’re a better team when we do that.
“Everyone has brought in and the outcome will hopefully come. If it doesn’t we have done everything we could.”
Werribee next week faces ECHO on Saturday at home.
