By Ethan Harris
USW’s Sevyn Burrows claimed his side can still go “toe-to-toe” with rivals despite their deflating 126-41 defeat to Cardiff Met 2nds.
The Archers came into the tie top of the BUCS Men’s Western Tier 3B and showed their class throughout a one-sided encounter, as USW struggled to get a foothold of Met’s quick counter-attacks.
Despite this, Burrows was still optimistic about the remainder of his team’s campaign.
“Honestly, I predict by the end of the season we will be going toe-to-toe.”, Burrows said.
“I think the rest of the season will just be learning a lot more team IQ. We’re a relatively small and new team, so we’re trying to get that team chemistry up.”
Although USW were comprehensively outplayed, there were still moments of quality from the likes of Juan Bautista, Ismail Saglamer and Chun Iam Chan, among others.
“The positives from this game: Cardiff Met are a world-class team, so you can learn a lot from the way they play,” Burrows added.
“And we have a lot more young people currently playing, just getting the experience of the side up. It wasn’t an expected win, but I think we did better than expected.”
Following last week’s walkover against Aberystwyth, there was always a risk that USW could be rusty coming into this encounter.
When asked, Burrows agreed, adding: “Definitely, especially with our fast breaks, and a lot of ball movement.
“We kept trying different things and it just needs more training really.”
The resounding result will raise questions over the overall performance levels, but Burrows still had faith in his defensive partners.
“I think our defence is quite good considering our low numbers.”, he responded.
“We only had six on, and for half of the game we had five on, so there were a lot of people, especially the big players, that were running 30-40 minutes.
“So, I think we did quite well to hustle on defence, but there were definitely some lapses in offense which allowed the other team to constantly get turnovers, and they obviously capitalised on that.”
USW remain locked at the foot of the table, and face a trip to high-flying Gloucestershire next Wednesday.