Assistant coach identifies fitness as cause of Tavur’s defeat

By ROBINSON LEKA
MATCH fitness was a major concern for National Soccer League (NSL) newcomers Tavur following their first match in Port Moresby on Saturday.
Tavur assistant coach Hans Fred said poor fitness proved costly in his side’s 1-2 loss to Southern Youth in the Southern Conference at Papua New Guinea Football Stadium.
“We’ve been in training back home but we weren’t able to have any lead-up matches, so we lacked match fitness for this game,” he said.
“We’ve already seen a few areas that we were lacking in, so we’ll go back to training to improve our game.
“In the second half, when we had more possession, we wanted to play to the style we wanted, but we couldn’t because we didn’t have that match fitness and that’s what held us back.
“We came into to this game to see where we are as a team, so that we could be better prepared moving into the next match.”
Fred said the lack of match fitness had forced Tavur to deviate from their game plan with decision making lacking in crucial stages of the game.
“It’s the decision making in the final stages of the game that cost us,” he said.
“We were caught in instances on how to move, whether to shoot, set or play what was in front of us.
“Instead of us playing together, we were doing things individually, so that’s one of the problems we’ve highlighted.”