After winning their last match against the Jaipur Pink Panthers, Titans were set to play their last match of the Delhi leg on Friday. Starting on a good note, Titans scored 5 Tackle points against the intimidating raiders of Puneri Paltan. Defender Vishal Bhardwaj was the top scorer for his team with 5 tackle points until the first half. Defenders of Puneri Paltan were successful to keep the raiding duo of Siddharth Desai and Suraj Desai.
Vishal Bhardwaj admitted where his team lost the guard. He went on to explain how they failed to capitalize on the opportunity.
“Team was doing very well in the first half but we committed a small mistake in our offense side that gave them an upper hand. However, even I committed a minor mistake in the second half which actually turned out to be a major game turning point. They took a lead of 3 points at the end of the first half which seemed a bit tough for us to recover”, Vishal Bhardwaj said.
On being asked about the performance of Siddharth and other raiders in the first half, Vishal was quick to reply back by saying, “Siddharth and his raiding companions had a figured out plan and they tried well to score points and as everyone is aware of Siddharth’s calibre and his match changing raids but yes,probably that was too a changing points when in absence of Siddharth they(Puneri Paltan) took a lead of 3 points.”
Coach Gholamreza Mazandarani seemed a bit disappointed with his team’s performance even after the team scored 5 tackle points but also failed to capitalize on the occasion. According to him, the team should have come up with strategies to combat the lack of raid points as he went told Sportzcraazy “I think that our old players played a bit aggressive game. I told my boys earlier that all the teams are fighting for earning points. After 2-3 consecutive wins, some of our players become over- confident that their next match is going to be easy but it’s never the case. Overall, I think it was a great experience. As of now we have some time to improve for the future games. I would congratulate our opposition as they totally outplayed us tonight.”
Tournament is now half way through and Telugu Titans stand on 11th position in the points table. Titans would need to have a new strategy for a comeback in the second half of the remaining tournament. However, assistant coach Jagdeesh KK seemed positive that as he also admitted that raiders need to buckle up since they are unable to perform as per their strengths in this season.
“Honestly speaking, our raiders are underperforming in the current season and would need to cope up for the next games as we will be planning things together with a complete sync among all the players. Well, improving the performance will be the top most priority”, Telugu Titans Assistant-coach Jagdeesh KK said.
As the final scorecard read 34- 27, it clearly showed the lack of quality raids from Telugu Titans. But keeping their losses aside, Telugu Titans are set to face Tamil Thalaivas in the Bangalore leg on September 2. By improving their raiding department, the players will be determined to stage a comeback by beating the Chennai based side and look forward to give a tough competition to the other teams as they look to ameliorate their performance.
