Macclesfield Head Coach Giles Heagerty reflected on The Blues’ home hammering at the hands of Fylde. Heagerty felt that his team gifted Fylde a lot of possession, and the visitors did well to convert these chances into points.
“That was a masterclass on how to capitalise on a team’s errors. Fylde were ruthless but at the same time we’ve gifted them half of those points, if not more.”
“I don’t want to take anything away from them because they scored 47 points and stopped us scoring. They’re very good at keeping the ball, so when you gift them possession like we did, they’re not going to give it back to you. I would think they will be a top 4 side this year, without doubt.”
Giles did not want to use injuries as an excuse for the poor form but admittedly the growing sick list is not helping the Macclesfield case for their first season back in National One. The Blues have lost key figures in key positions, they started the season without both starting props Billy Robinson and Tom Mantell, Robinson is expected to return this weekend but Mantell is likely to miss the majority of the season. Macc were also without starting lock pair from the opening game Dean Williams and Chris Jones.
“We just have to get better. But you can’t legislate for some of the injuries that we’ve had. I’m not using it as an excuse but it doesn’t help when trying to give continuity to what you’re trying to achieve. We constantly have to change things with bodies dropping left, right and centre and these bodies have been in rather key positions.”
Heagerty felt his team had to dust themselves down and prepare for Saturday’s trip to Esher, the Blues travel south in search for their first points of the season.
“There is no point in us dropping our heads and sulking off into a corner, we have to suck it up. This is the group we have, we have to come down on Tuesday, work hard and get ready to go to Esher. Esher have just lost to Richmond, a team that we could’ve beaten, which might not mean much but anybody can beat anybody in national one. We’ve had a bad day, it’s as simple as that.”
“Judging by the performance we put last week, this week has to be put down as an aberration. This will not become a habit; there are a lot of very disappointed people in that changing room. We know we have things to work on.”
