Canberra Olympic were forced to come from behind twice to earn a point from a 2-2 draw against bottom of the ladder West Canberra Wanderers in the National Premier League Round 10 clash at Melrose Synthetic.

The draw against the team that had only recorded one points prior to the weekend’s fixture perhaps demonstrating that their form is not where they want it to be.

Canberra Olympic coach Rob Cattanach was disappointed in the performance of the team, attributing the draw to poor execution of basic skills and an inconsistent regular team line-up each week.

“Not one of our better performances,” Cattanach admitted. “Woden (West Canberra) have battled hard, they are organised, so I don’t want to take any credit away from them but at the end of the day, we were doing basic things wrong and weren’t able to get into a rhythm and play our game which was disappointing.”

Olympic had to revise the aspects of their game at the half-time break to shift their focus to improving their defensive line which successfully resulted in not conceding in the second forty-five minutes.

“There was a big focus on what we were doing wrong essentially, a lot of our basics were letting us down, so I was trying to get them to focus their attention on that,” Cattanach said.

“Especially in defending, I think receiving two goals in one half against a team that’s had one point all season is not where we want to be.

“I was happy we didn’t concede in the second half but at the same time I don’t think we did anywhere near enough with the ball to win the game.”

Cattanach believes his team is a work in progress and, currently sitting in fifth place on the ladder, demonstrates that they are close enough to the top four to be a serious contender in reaching finals. The biggest challenge for Olympic is not their skill level, but their decision-making when it comes to crucial moments in the match.

“I think it will be good if we can get some players out on the field and get some continuity,” he said.  “The team has changed every week since the start of the year so if I can just get the same team on the park couple of weeks in a row, hopefully they can grow together.

“We’ve got quite a young team and young players can be two things: they can be inconsistent, and they can make poor decisions at times, especially when there is a little bit of pressure on them.

“I think that’s what we’ve got to work on, decision making is the thing we have to focus on the most at the moment.”

Olympic prides themselves in being a competitive team in the National Premier League competition, a tournament in which they were regular winners, and is ready to show the rest of the teams what they can do by aiming high.

“Top four would be minimum. We wouldn’t be aiming for anything else,” a bullish Cattanach said. “I think if we can get enough consistency to get there, we will give these finals a real shake. I think there will be a few teams not looking to play us in finals.”

Words: Sonia Emanuel