PKL 2019 | Inexperience cost us, says Gholamreza Mazandarani after Telugu Titans' loss against Puneri Paltan

08/31/2019

Telugu Titans’ coach Gholamreza Mazandarani has said that they lost the match because of lack of experience and the aggressive approach that their players took in the second half. Telugu Titans lost to Puneri Paltan 27-34 despite setting the record for most super tackles in a single match.

Telugu Titans were outclassed by Puneri Paltan in their 11th encounter of the season. Though they did manage to get the defeat margin of seven points so that they could get one point of the loss. Telugu Titans had a shaky start as they lost points in successive raids and were down to three players in just three minutes into the game. That was when they executed their first super tackle and then went to execute four more of them before getting all-out in the first half. The point of concern for them was the non-performance of the raiders who hardly contributed in the first half. They finished the first half lagging behind by three points.

“I think in the second half, the players played a little bit aggressively. I told them before the match that all teams are fighting for points. But after two, three wins, some players think all matches will be easy. I think inexperience lost us the game as well as some mistakes,” Telugu Titans coach Gholamreza Mazandarani said in the post-match press conference.

It was in the Super Raid by Manjeet in the second-half which widened the point difference and Telugu was not able to recover from it despite Siddharth Desai's last surge. The raiding department of Telugu Titans disappointed once again as they were only able to score 10 points. Seven of those points were scored by Siddharth in the second half after the Paltan had a big lead.

“We had our plans and so did the opponents. Raiders sometimes are unsuccessful because Siddharth Desai is a good raider and everyone watches him. The turning point of the match was when Manjeet scored the Super Raid for Puneri Paltan after halftime,” Vishal Bharadwaj said.

It was the defense which saved grace for Telugu Titans and also made a record for most Super Tackles (7) in a match. The highest scorer in their defense was C.Arun with six points which include three super tackles. He was well supported by their team’s top defender. Vishal Bhardwaj, who scored with the help of two super tackles. However, he scored all of those five points in the first 15 minutes of the game and wasn’t very successful in the second half.

“From the start, our raiders have found it a bit difficult, while our defenders have played well. So, we’re going to be focusing on our raiders and we must win the league at any cost, which is why we’ll focus on our raiders improving in the upcoming games and look to improve,” assistant coach Jagdish Kumble concluded.