R27 v Sydney | Sunday 26th April | 5:00pm

Ibini got the ball well in his own half and beat Fenton to basically skip clear..or maybe one other then Fenton.  Either way it was similar to other passages of play with wide open space on our flanks.

oops I see a similar answer earlier.  My badd.

On the in and out of seats thing I agree..second half I moved over to aisle 12 partly in frustration at continual traffic past me.  For large parts of second half it looked like about 2000 has left seats and were on concourse patrol..mainly kids and teenagers I guess.

yeah. God damn people coming to the football. What were they thinking talking, eating and drinking... I mean really.

Ibini managed to make himself public enemy number one after his goal celebration. Not even Smeltz or Griffiths ever gave us that. 

One fan told us that he had waited 20 mins that started at half time whistleto get a beer and food. He missed our goal.

I think its more an issue of people getting up and down several times during a game, rather than being late back. From my experience there are 3 categories ( and they piss me off too): young kids, young women and drunk men. Doesnt leave many left does it? Personally I dont drink at the football - more than 1 bottle - for that vwry reason. No refill and no loo during game time. #thoughfulpunter

Meh. If we want 13k crouds we're going to have to put up with young kids (banging seats etc), young women (why are they annoying?) and drunk men (getting beer, going to the loo and talking shark). I'd rather have the crouds so I'm fine with it.

Maybe we need a "cultured observer" section for the fans who are really in it for the football... wait a minute...

Wondered when you'd mention Ricki. He did have Ifill, at his A league best, Mckain, Greenacre, Rojas, Manny in his pomp, etc, so not a totally sh*t team. 

This season on our day we look like we can beat anyone. I never felt that under Herbert.

Really FT?

We were one match away from the GF but suffered at the hand of Payne.  Admittedly we had a great home record and mediocre away record, but we were pretty blimmin' ace back in the day.

With prawn sandwiches and Chardonnay?

For me, the culprit was Rieira - Ibini was on the counter but wide near the touchline, & Dura, Siggy, and Boxall had gone up for the corner . Instead of holding Ibini up, Riera slid in, missed, & Ibini was through 1 on 1 with Fenton, with our back four still half a pitch away.

http://leopoldmethod.com.au/tactical-talking-point...

Yes. Which is why I'm disappointed. We looked like we could beat anyone. We ended up dropping points due to sheer lack of mental toughness. For me, 2009/10 was a B+ grade team playing out of its skin; this year we had an A- team which got lazy sometimes.

Mental toughness. Who has that on their football cliché bingo board?

and equally get pumped by them too.

So you don't think the mental side of the game is real and that Roly/Burns are actually just not technically good enough to put away penalties?

Everyone knows that the key attributes are penalty taking and composure. #footballmanager

Yeah. The 3-2 win over CCM with the last kick is a prime example of the mental toughness we lack...... *facepalm* Jets too?

I think they're technically good enough to put it away x% of the time, meaning they'll occasionally miss one. 

Surely technical ability is the key attribute.

Really though, any professional footballer should be able to put a solid 12 yard pass exactly where they mean to from a dead ball - which is all you need to do for a penalty. You don't have to smack the crap out of it, just a decent hit inside the post will do it against all but the most ridiculously athletic saves. So it's really a mental thing. Attacking players are usually given it presumably because they are more used to scoring goals and therefore shouldn't feel as much pressure, but it should probably go to the coolest head in the team, the one who seems to handle pressure the best. For us, maybe that would be Riera? 

Every footballer missed a 10 yards pass. Is that mental toughness? Or just an ability to do it 100% of the time.

It's not like it was in front of 80,000 people in a World Cup final.

You could balance that with the three games we contrived to lose in the last few minutes earlier in the season. Actually all of the top teams have their last gasp wins/losses too but I tend to agree with the view that the two 3-0 losses stuffed our morale a bit right at a crucial time of the season.

Most people are affected by pressure to some degree. But ultimately pressure is something you put on yourself - if you feel that 80,00 people in the stands puts pressure on you, it does. If you're one of those random freaks who just thinks that those 80,000 people don't actually make a difference to the task you have to perform then you don't feel pressure. 

"I don't feel pressure ... I don't give a toss about it. I spent the afternoon of Sunday, July 9, 2006 in Berlin sleeping and playing the PlayStation. In the evening, I went out and won the World Cup." - Andrea Pirlo

Sports psychologists try to make professionals perform their basic technical skills the same regardless of the situation. If we are having issues with missing penalties I'd say the problem is mental not technical.

that doesn't mean every penalty miss is down to mental toughness. In some unique circumstances it may be. But generally you'd be good enough to hit that spot (say) 9 times out of 10 - you'll miss at some point, all the best athletes do. 

Here's an interesting article about the psychology of penalty shootouts. I know we're not talking specifically about shootouts but a lot of the same stuff applies:

http://www.thesportinmind.com/articles/brazil-2014-penalty-shootouts-theyre-just-a-lottery-right/

Cultural traits make a difference too:

http://www.penaltyshootouts.co.uk/research.html

Going 0-2 down against CCM and Sydney are examples of the mental toughness - or whatever sport-psych cliché means the same thing - that we lack. One team was weak enough to let us get back with our talent.

In your rush to all disagree with the whiny goalkeeper chick, you give yourself a logic puzzle to solve. Are you really saying that we don't lack mental toughness, that we were out-talented, that - for example - there's not an issue in that Ernie drills penalties and we've messed those up more than others? Or the end-of-season form slump after we'd made sure of a home final?

If "mental toughness" is bullshark and technical ability is the deciding factor, then what explains the post-Asian Cup slump?

So Moss palming a free kick into the goal is a sign of mental toughness?

To put it another way...

Those penalty attempts were weak, not the sign of players in form or confident

I dont think their technical abilities have changed in the last few months

So you can lose mental toughness over a season?

Could it be that we had a tougher run in the second half of the season? We played Victory and Sydney once each. The Sydney game was when they had half a team IIRC. We had to play them each twice in the second half of the season.

Quotes from Ernie when we were building towards the team we are now - from last season;

"It's about playing football and trying to stop the long ball playing out from the back and to their credit they were first class.

"Before you can improve with your feet, you've got to improve upstairs.

"I thought last week we should have ground out a draw and this week we did it, that's a big improvement regarding mental toughness."

http://www.sportal.com.au/football/a-league/wellin...

Obviously no player can be expected to be 100% accurate in any facet of the game - it doesn't matter how good they are; the ones that execute a higher percentage are the ones that earn the big bucks. However, if you don't think that when Roly stepped to take the penalty that Burns recent miss against City and the occasion of the game was likely in his mind; then I'm not sure what to say. There is a reason a guy like Kevin Muscat had a ridiculously high conversion rate from spot kicks; technical ability, and yes, mental strength. 

Anyway, I don't think we're horribly bad in that regard anyway - I just think our confidence has been knocked a bit after losing a few against two top teams in Sydney and Melbourne. That's natural. It's how we back up next week that will be telling.

As for your post Asian Cup, see 2nd Bests response.

You're actually agreeing with me though by saying it's easy to get nervous taking one at the park - that shows that the issue is largely mental.

I'm not saying that we should expect our players to feel no pressure at all, but that there are certain personality types that respond better in those situations. And, those psychological traits can be developed through things like breathing exercises, visualisation, etc

I'm not arguing that there is a mental side of the game. Clearly there is. I'm just saying that claiming it as the reason we finished fourth is simplest. It's akin to saying that a team wanted it more. It's hollow cliché.

I don't think our mentality is a defining factor for this team either way though really. 

Just on the Asian Cup break.

Before: We played the top 6 teams (Perth exl) 6 times. And the bottom 4, 8 times.
After: We played the top 6 teams (Perth exl) 9 times, And the bottom 4, 4 times.

Another way, before we played WSW, CCM and Jets 6 times before the break, but just 3 times after.

Could it be that we have just ended up where we deserved to be?

I think if a player steps up to take a penalty, they generally have the confidence to believe that they'll score it.