By Tara Murray
Altona East Phoenix has started the FV state league 2 north-west season strongly but coach Paul Donnelly believes they can get better.
The Phoenix won its first three games of the season to be one of the early pacesetters.
Coach Paul Donnelly said before the weekend’s third round match that they still have work to do.
“We’ve had a good start, which is good,” he said. “We got a bit complacent on Friday [in round two] and I gave them a serve at half time.
“We got back on track. I think we can get better and I don’t want to get carried away.
“We trained hard and had a good pre-season and it’s come to fruition so far.”
Donnelly, who took over coaching the side midway through last season, said having a full pre-season with the group had been really beneficial.
He said last season that he was able to implement some things, but was limited in what they could change in a short period of time.
“We get a fresh start,” he said. “We recruited really hard as well.
“There’s a lot of new players in the squad, so we’re working from scratch and setting the foundations.”
Donnelly said they had eight or nine players in the squad this season. He said that wasn’t how they had planned it.
“It’s just how it panned out,” he said. “We were playing friendly games and saw some areas that we needed to strengthen.”
Donnelly said they had a couple of tough games before the Easter break.
He said they were looking to take it week by week.
The Phoenix faced Dallas City on Saturday in its round three match.
It was another strong performance by the Phoenix, which came away with a 3-0 win.
The Phoenix led 1-0 at half time before scoring twice late in the game to seal the win.
Takaya Matsunaga scored twice and Connor Gaul once.
This week the Phoenix faces the Whittlesea Ranges, who Donnelly said would be one of the teams up there this season.
In other matches, Williamstown beat the Geelong Rangers, 2-0.
