Problems absentees’ bring and delving into Devlin.

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July 28, 2008

Early. The season will soon be upon us and thankfully (or should I say hopeful) we won’t have the problems we had last season. I hint at hopefully because there’s always a chance someone may take me aside at training this week and say “Gaffer, I meant to tell you I’m away for two months to canoe up the Amazon for charity”. Believe me with our lot it could happen.

Last season we had a strong pool on paper but we didn’t really get our act together until around Christmas. Smiler and Jono missed the whole of pre-season thru coaching in the States and tending to the needy in Sri Laka. Add to that’s Dan getting the “yellow” jersey as King of the “real” Mountain when we were playing important games and you see why a lack of continuity showed around Challenge and Scottish Cup time.

Fit players are fit and missing pre-season or big junks of the season isn’t going to change that. If however, someone could help explain the difference between fitness and match fitness to a coach or manager so they can explain it to the public, they would be forever grateful. Jono and Smiler didn’t come back unfit but you can’t miss 20 pre-season sessions and not miss the benefits.

While I’m on, the size and nature of our defeat at Prestonfield still riles with me but Jono and Smiler were short of match fitness, Dan was half-way up a mountain - oh! and Donal was injured. I’ll leave it at that.

Why am I raising all this?

Daryl scored four goals for us in 15 minutes on Saturday. I can’t remember the last time a Spartans player ever did that. With Cloudie out for a while it was a great lift to everyone, especially with the season just round the corner. That’s of course if you didn’t know Mr Devlin is away on holiday for a fortnight this weekend and misses the start of the season.

On Daryl, we discussed what we thought was his best position a couple of weeks ago. “Coming in off the left or central midfield” he told me. “Rubbish, he’s a striker” Sam told me when he came back from the Mother country. 1-0 to Sam.

On the brighter side the problems we had last season with un-injured players missing for long periods won’t happen this time round. Struan is back this weekend, Daryl only misses a week of the season and as far as I know only Wee Eck is away (from 5/9 for two weeks) during the early season.

A week on Saturday can’t come quick enough, whoever we have available.

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