Four days… Four games…
Recently Spartacus completed four games in four days. The first two games Spartacus played 11 a side games against Brampton and Erin Mills respectively. Brampton plays a physical style, trying to release their two fast forwards whenever the opportunity arises. Spartacus responded extremely well to this tactic, keeping a very high line at the back and pushing their defence quickly up field when gaining possesion of the ball.
As a result Brampton were continually caught offside, allowing Spartacus to regain posession quickly whenever Brampton attempted to move into the final third of the field in attack.

Spartacus is still developing an understanding of the different tactics required to score on a large field against eleven players. Although they moved the ball well from defence, through the midfield and down the flanks to their forwards, Spartacus did not capitalize in and around the penalty area. This will improve with practice and experience.
The second game againt Erin Mills saw two teams playing similar styles. There were few offsides, plenty of passing and good defensive play. The rain made the field very slick but both teams coped quite well with the less than ideal conditions. The balance of play was decidedly in favour of Spartacus, but as was the case against Brampton, the team could not finish around the opposition goal area.

The final two games were played on successive nights against Weston and Hillcrest. Both games began quite similarly, with Spartacus dominating possession and scoring opportunities.

However, in both games the half time score did not reflect the play. Fortunately in both games the scoring opportunites resulted in a much more successful completion rate, as Spartacus
built insurmountable leads in both games.

Moreover, Spartacus did not allow a goal from open play during the four games, and allowed only one in total. As a team Spartacus is quickly becoming highly technical at shutting down their opposition, while a much more balnced attack is definately becoming more evident.

