A wasteful Southern United had to settle for a share of the points in their Coastal Premier League Men’s round six fixture on Saturday.
The Ospreys drew 2-all with Kempsey Saints in a match that allowed the Kempsey side to register their first competition points while Southern stayed inside the top four.
Coach Jonathan Newman said it was a result they might rue later in the season.
“I looked at a couple of the chances we missed and at this level you’d hope they’d be finished,” he said.
“But I’m not a striker, I’ve always been a defender and I guess you would feel the pressure in a 1v1 situation. But we had at least a couple of one on ones with their ‘keeper where we could and should have executed it better.
“Everybody is a little bit short of finishing practice given the weather’s impact on training but I would expect our guys to improve on that as the season goes on.”
Southern will have a step up in opposition when they enter Coffs Coast Tigers’ den at Polwarth Drive on Saturday.
The Tigers inflicted the first defeat of the season on early ladder-leaders Bellingen with a 3-0 result.
Newman knows Southern will need to be better in defence with a few lapses proving costly against Kempsey.
“Defensively we made two mistakes and got punished for both of them so we need to talk about how we rectify that,” he said.
“Do that and we’ll give ourselves every chance of getting a result out of this weekend.”
The coach didn’t read too much into Bellingen’s early-season form where they hadn’t played Coffs United, Coffs Coast or Port United prior to last weekend.
“That was their first game against any of those three so it might be a reflection of where we’re all really at,” he said.
“Bellingen can only beat what’s infront of them and they’ve done that, so they’ve obviously got a bit about them.
“I’m looking forward to seeing them when we play them, but I don’t want to look too far ahead beyond this weekend.”
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