EVERYONE wants to talk about Wednesday’s match against South Australia, but Vic Country coach Rob Hyde is only interested in one topic – the match against Queensland at Visy Park on Saturday.
Hyde is well are of the pitfalls of young players getting too far ahead of themselves and losing concentration on what needs to be done now, not in the future.
Vic Country is the only undefeated team heading into Saturday’s match after wins against Vic Metro, NSW/ACT and West Australia, the latter two on the road.
Back home for the final two matches of the AFL Under 18 National Championships, Vic Country faces Queensland then South Australia on Wednesday.
“I know its old hat, but we’ve just got to focus on one game at a time and what we need to focus on first is Queensland and play as well as we can,” Hyde said.
“Then we will look to South Australia and see what that brings.”
Hyde admitted he cast his eye over the Championship rules governing who the title is decided, but gave it away when as he found too many what if scenarios.
He said he wasn’t going to anchor the players by having to kick a certain number of goals and keep the opposition to a specified amount.
“It’s too complicated to worry about. We’ll just look at beating Queensland and if we do then it sets us for a showdown with South Australia.
“If we win both our games we don’t have to worry about percentage or anything like that.
“Last year we won a couple and people started saying ‘three to go to win the Championship or something like that’ and we ended up winning one more game.”
Vic Country may rest against Queensland a few players with what Hyde termed “niggles”, but said selectors had virtually a full squad to pick from.
Already, Vic Country has played 34 players, which not only has exposed the players to the National Championships, but also showcased the depth of the squad.
With two successive games interstate, Hyde said returning for games in the player’s home State would be appreciated, but he noted country players still had to endure long trips to Melbourne.
“But, that doesn’t worry them much, they’re used to it. They just want to get on with it,” Hyde said.
Last Modified on 18/08/2010 11:47