City lose out in goal fest

Despite going down 6-3 to Fremantle in the first hit-out of the night series, Rockingham City coach Tim Slack says he has some positives to take from the game.

City fielded a youthful side featuring several debutants and a few mainstays from last year’s side.

Rafa Insaurralde bagged a double for City at Hyundai Stadium, with the third coming from an own-goal.

Slack said his side was still gelling as a unit and had to learn some hard lessons.

“We had some good passages of play but we were a little bit naïve in some of our defending,” he said.

“We need to work on a number of things, especially when we don’t have the ball.”

Despite chasing the game for long periods, Slack believes his side played some good football as the second-half wore on.

“I thought our last 20 minutes were very positive,” he said.

“There were good signs there — we changed things around because we were goals behind and chasing the game.

“We went to three at the back and I thought we were the better footballing team. “We did concede three quite basic and simple goals, soft goals — that didn’t help at all.”

Slack said his charges still had to work on their fitness collectively, but praised his youthful team’s showing.

City will face Bunbury Forum Force, who had to settle with a 2-2 draw with Mandurah on Friday, at Hyundai Stadium on Friday starting at 8.30pm. Elsewhere in the group, Mandurah will face Fremantle at an earlier 6.30pm kickoff.