Essendon Mazda Coach’s Comment: Van’t Schip drawing confidence from Australia Cup triumph ahead of George Cross clash
Davey Van’t Schip says confidence is high in the Essendon Royals camp ahead of Saturday’s crunch State League 1 clash with Caroline Springs George Cross.
However, the Royals know there can be no more silly mistakes against quality opposition.
The Royals already have a win to their name at City Vista Pavilion & Sports Field, having knocked Caroline Springs out of the Australia Cup a few weeks ago, and Van’t Schip said he wants his players to feed off the confidence earned from that win.
“I think it should give us confidence, especially compared to last year where we maybe weren’t as successful in those bigger games,” he said.
“We feel like that game was a massive boost for us and to get the win away at George Cross and some of the teams we’ve beaten in pre-season gives us a good feeling.
“We can go out there without that fear or nervousness because we’ve done it now.”
Van’t Schip said the silly errors that plagued the Royals in their 4-2 win over Banyule City can’t be allowed to happen again this week.
“I do think that the end result last week was fair. We probably could have scored a lot more, but it’s obviously not a good start when you’re 1-0 down after 30 seconds,” he said.
“I think we bounced back well, even after being 2-1 down at half-time and in both halves we had plenty of chances to score.
“I think we’ve just got to tighten up defensively and iron out some of the errors we’ve made and be more clinical upfront.
“We’re not going to have 25 chances every week as we did against Banyule.”
Van’t Schip confirmed that the injury suffered by Leigh Minopoulos would keep him out for some time, whilst Anthony Raamzy’s injury will also be longer-term than originally though.
However, with Greg Lombardo making a successful comeback in the Reserves last week, he is happy with the depth available to him and Interim Coach Mick Ferrante.
“Other than those longer-term injuries we have a full squad to pick from so that’s a positive,” he said.
“We are really just focused on the players we have and the way we want to play. Whatever George Cross throw at us on the day we will deal with, but we’re focused on how we can get the best out of the players we have.”