More on Saturday's games

Getting back to some earlier games.

First Australia v England. As mentioned before we tried very hard to lose that game. It was only really in the last 8 minutes during extra time that Australia stepped up and showed the skill levels they should have been using all day to dominate that game.

Instead at best we controlled parts of it and allowed England to come back from 6 - 2 down at half time to force the game into extra time at 8 all.

This really does not bode well for the Australia Canada game later tonight. Against England, any mistakes normally resulted in a missed chance or a change in possession. Against a team like Canada, who we remember defeated USA in their Saturday game, an Australian mistake is going to be a Canadian goal.

BIG lift in match discipline required for tonights game if Australia want to be competitive.

(Speaking of competitive, USA is currently playing Germany. The score is pretty much what you would be expecting. More on that game later.)

Canada and USA. Big name game. Packed house. EXCELLENT lacrosse.

Close game the entire 80 mins with the biggest lead at any one time being 2 goals. I thought the Canadians had a little bit more luck on a couple of their goals at a time when the US couldn't buy a goal, but that is life in the big city. Sometimes the ball sticks in the goalie's stick and sometimes it gets backspin and flips out the corner to dribble between the legs in slow motion. Move on, get over it :)

USA I would have to class as the slightly better team. They were wonderful to watch, having that complete confidence with their passing in attack that only the VERY good have. The comparison with watching a team like USA in attack as compared to us lesser mortals is that when they have the ball, EVERY man at EVERY time looks like he is about 5 seconds from doing something very dangerous and scoring. Watch a lesser mortal in attack and every man looks about 2 passes from setting something up.

(or more cruelly, watching some teams in attack looks like every man is about 5 seconds away from turning the ball over but the MudCrab is a backman and likes to say that about attack strings :P )

An example of the USA skill level and mind set comes from one of their man up plays. Most teams and players would get the ball moving, try and collapse the zone and do all the normal funky things like set up a good outside shot, push a corner or fed into the crease man for an inside shot.

USA come in for the man up. They move the ball, get things happening, fed into the man on the crease... and then feed OUT of the crease to the man on the left side for him to take the shot.

Against Canada.

And at lacrosse level kids, that doesn't get much better.