I thought for where we are in our rebuilding, and first time round in the Championship, it was a very creditable performance. Toronto are very good and improving, and yet knew they had been in a game.
To me, the major difference between the two teams was the tactic that Toronto had obviously decided upon, and that is to attack at all costs and tire us out. It worked, because the lopsided score at the end was the result of them having taken so much petrol out of our tank, and even then we didn't collapse, but scoring became easier as gaps appeared.
the most noticeable factor for me, and which led o us spending large parts of the game trying vainly to get out of our own half, was the simple tactic of running hard after a quick PTB, AND having two or 3 men running close to the ball carrier. This we found hard to cope with, and our one man drives contrasted very poorly with it. Whether we don't have the personnel to regularly send at least a couple of players sprinting with the ball carrier to stretch the defence, I don't know, but it made it very clear that Toronto were in charge, and overall, were a lot more threatening and got a shedload of far better field position.
But like I say, I thought we coped with it pretty well, it was a very stern test and should stand us in good stead for the coming games. We gave them about a 50% better game than I feared we might. A full squad with everyone playing in position would have been interesting.
