PKL 2019 | Our players made few wrong decisions at the end, says Arjun Singh
PKL
UP Yoddha coach Arjun Singh, while criticizing his team’s defense, has said that they made wrong decisions at the end of the game which cost them five points. He also added that his team didn’t initiate tackles and were trying to play safe because of which they ended up giving away points.
UP Yoddha lost 33-36 against Haryana Steelers last night and this was their fourth loss of the season. UP Yoddha got out early in the first half courtesy of their raiding which was not up to the mark till then as the first half ended with them trailing behind by four points. In the second half, UP managed to quickly overcome the deficit and they were able to inflict an all-out. In this process, Naveen managed to hold off the all-out twice which helped Haryana in lessening the impact of it.
“Look, it was pretty even throughout the game, but our players made a few wrong decisions in the end. We didn’t execute tackles where we should have and that cost us points, which put pressure on the defence,” coach Arjun Singh said in the post-match press conference.
In the raiding department, Shrikant Jhadav showed signs of coming back in form by scoring 9 raid points. Monu Goyat, on the other hand, recited the same story as earlier matches as he was able to score only 5 points. In defence, Sumit scored 4 points followed by skipper Nitesh Kumar who scored 3. Even though the defence’s scorecard better, they became sloppy in the end minutes of the game.
“Our defence didn’t play well towards the end of the game because they were trying to play safe. If they tried to tackle and played more aggressively perhaps then things would have been different. But we made errors in the last 4-5 minutes,” the coach expressed.
Vikas Kandola was the performer of the match for Haryana Steelers as he scored 12 points even though he didn't have the dream first half. He got out only twice and had 9 empty raids.Â
“Yes, I feel that our plan to contain Vikash was successful because he tries to get a lot of bonuses, which we restricted. So in that sense I think we were successful. It’s just at the end of the match that he managed to get some points,” skipper Nitesh Kumar concluded.
