Losing is always a difficult experience, even more so when you spend the game thinking you've made a big mistake. And indeed, one look at the box score is enough to see where I went wrong today.
The loss of Millar was of course a blow, especially on top of Palit's injury, but I felt going into today that we had more than a decent chance against Germany. I knew they were strong, but we had higher enth, and we also had good game shape. So certainly I can't blame anyone for this.
I didn't expect Germany to predict an outside offence. I had gone outside twice, but those were the two easiest games in the group, and I felt it would look like I wanted us to run up the score in those games. Against Belarus I'd used a neutral offence, so it seemed I'd been unpredictable enough. Equally, I would have thought 3-2 would be too big a risk in an NT game.
Clearly I was wrong.
From the box score it would appear that we lost the game when Sharpling and Marshall were on the bench. Our D wasn't able to stop their LI. Simpson especially had trouble early defending his opponent. Also importantly, rebounding was a huge negative for us. A fairly decent finish to the game made the scoreline at least a little more respectable, but that shouldn't paper over the cracks of what was a fairly poor effort.
Again, I want to make it clear I'm very happy with everyone's game shape today. The loss was down to me. It stings that after a fine result last week, I've let this one slip, and what was looking like a very promising season, has now become much more difficult.