Saturday: Bracknell 0-6 Manchester. Get in. Solid result away from home.
Sunday: Manchester 1-6 Slough. What the fuck?
Yup, it was a weekend of extremes for the Phoenix. A road win at Bracknell, by a convincing scoreline was reversed on Sunday by an absolute tonking at home to Slough.
And lets be honest, we were comfortably the poorer team on Sunday. No fluke goals, no poor reffing, no '1 man plays a blinder'. Slough were vastly superior to us in every aspect.
They came to the Dome with an obvious plan, involving high tempo play, solid forechecking, and rapidly closing down any passing channels we might have had going forwards, and they did this bloody well. Our D just could not contain Sloughs forwards, judging by just how much time they had on the puck, and how easily they scored.
Mattson had a bit of a mare. So did Boothroyd. Hell, our best D was Haggelberg, and he is technically a forward. Tony and Big Ed were almost entirely shut down, and the Brits jst could not get shots on target. So its time to gas someone, right?
Wrong! Despite the clamour on the offical forum for Payettes head (He is doing just fine thanks. Tony has told him what he wants, and Payette is giving him exactly that), gassing a forward to bring in a Defenseman is not sound thinkiing. Hell, who says we have the resources to bring another player in anyways? I personally think Tony needs to work more on the getting the D to hang back a bit more, and play more 'defensively'.
Think about it, we are 12 games into the season, sitting 3rd in the table with 9 wins and just 3 losses. Hardly panic stations just yet. If things are stioll the same on ice in a month, then we might have to try and change things, but not just yet.
And the crowd? Well, it was a tad smaller than last week (@700), but it was damn quiet. Even the Choir Boys (yes, I'll name them) gave up once it was clear we were done for.
Anyways, Onwards and upwards!
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