SOCCER: Coach hurt that his boys aren't

HAMISH BIDWELL
It's a riddle that's perplexed football coaches since the sport began; just how do you get through to 11 disparate players?
Right now Bluewater Napier City Rovers coach Chris Shakeshaft admits he hasn't got a clue. His team copped a 7-1 hiding at Endeavour Park on Saturday as Western Suburbs made Shakeshaft's youngsters look a rabble.
Having started the Central League season positively, the rookie coach says things have reached a low ebb and he needs to retrieve them as quickly as possible.
"Seven-one is a thumping - no matter what kind of spin you put on it," Shakeshaft said.
"It's a thrashing and our guys need to start hurting a bit more. I've stressed to them the fact that they need to be hungry and that they need to hurt a bit more, because winning does hurt.
"The question I've been asking them is 'do you want to go out there and hurt for 90 minutes?' It's become clear that too many of the guys don't want to hurt enough. There are a handful in the squad who do hurt week in and week out, but there's too many that don't and it's hard at the moment.
"Losing hurts me and I was bitter after the game and I'm still bitter now. I had a long four-hour drive home from Wellington to think about it and I still couldn't work out why the guys don't hurt and when I get home I was still angry and it was my poor wife who had to put up with it.
"It's a mental thing and the guys have got to get mentally harder. We're getting some good individual performances but, at the end of the day, football is about results and somehow we need to find a way to make sure all 11 individuals turn up each week ready to play their A-game.
"There is one player who does hurt every week and does bring his A-game and that's Graham Fyfe. But he comes from a different environment and a different football culture and I have to say I really don't know what motivates this generation of kids we've got at the moment."
But that doesn't include Reiner Bauerfeind. Up against the prodigiously talented Daniel Keat in midfield, Shakeshaft said the teenager put in an outstanding display in front of Suburbs, and New Zealand under-20 coach, Stu Jacobs.
"Keat's just been over at Blackburn and he's a very good player with all the attributes and, in marking him, Reiner Bauerfeind showed to me that he's almost in that class."
Otherwise, he said there was very little to enthuse over as the likes of Paul Whitmarsh, Jimmy Cudd and Rupert Ryan put Rovers to the sword.