While Macquarie United may have run over the Westside Panthers in dominant fashion in their last outing, coach Alan Auld is already setting his sights on tackling issues surrounding club discipline during the downtime of the season.
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"We're going along well, but for me the attendance over the last couple of weeks has started to drop off," Auld said.
"That's something myself and the second grade coach will have to rectify."
While no one could blame Macquarie for resting on their laurels after handing the outmatched Panthers a 13 - 1 drubbing, Auld says the lack of enthusiasm is down to the sheer number of interruptions in the season so far.
"For the first seven weeks there's several general byes, due to holidays and when the junior league is running there's not enough fields available."
"It's a bit of a scheduling nightmare."
Aside from a last minute goal conceded in the second half, there was little sign of discipline issues on the field, with Macquarie storming ahead to a strong lead by half-time and seeing off the Panthers in decisive fashion.
"Obviously, the Westside club, it's their first year in first grade for a number of years, they're building toward the future," Auld said.
"I was really proud of our guys the way that we played, normally when you play against an opposition that's not as strong, everyone tries to get greedy, but at half-time, the scoreline was nine or ten nil for us."
"The first half I was really pleased with the way that everyone played, we were moving the ball around well, we were creating a lot of chances and we took a lot of those chances as well."
"The first half was really good."
It wasn't until the second half that Macquarie showed any cracks in their defence, something that's been a persistent issue for Macquarie throughout the season, and will will be a primary focus for the club going forward.
"The disappointing thing was that we conceded a goal with two minutes to go because we pushed a lot of numbers forward and we got caught on the counter attack," Auld said.
"That's been a common theme this season, conceding soft goals, but that's something that we'll have to walk on in the months to come."
They'll need those improvements if they want to get the better of the Newtown Saints in their upcoming clash and Coach Auld knows it.
"Last time we played them, the score there was a five all draw, it was probably one of our worst performances this year, we were down three nil and then it started to go back and forth," Auld said.
"We definitely won't be taking them lightly, we definitely want to go out there and improve on our last performance against them."
Redemption against the Saints will allow Macquarie more breathing room in a very close competition and help keep them in winning form before their hotly anticipated rematch with Dubbo FC the week after.
Macquarie will meet the Saints on Sunday June 16.
