Coach in fix as D’Tigers clash with Australia

By Esther Egbe

Coach Abdulrahman Mohammed is not ready to stick out his neck about the D’Tigers chances at the 2018 Commonwealth Games when they face host- Australia in their third group game of the competition,National Daily learnt.

Abdulrahman who has been saddled with handling the team in the absence of Coach Alex Nwora said all odds are stacked against them facing an Australian team who are statistically the best so far in the competition.

He is hoping that the team can stay together as a unit, play its natural game and come out with a decent result against the Aussies.

“Australia is arguably the best team in the tournament and it will be silly of me to put my head out and say we are going to win. I am hoping we don’t get an embarrassing score line.”

In his analysis few hours to the game, the soft spoken coach reasoned that, “We lost the game to New Zealand with 45 points and yesterday (Saturday), New Zealand lost to Australia, so if you look at it from that angle, you will probably think maybe we will lose by 90 points, but I am just hoping that we don’t get an embarrassing score line.

He lamented the absence of the team’s head coach whose presence he believed would have made a bit of difference on the team’s overall output.

“No doubt, we miss Coach Alex because 3 good heads are better than 2. I am not saying if he was around, we could have won the games, but I think we would have played better. Surely, there would have been certain things he could have brought in that would have made the difference in the team.”

Irrespective of the result, Nigeria will still qualify for the semi finals and play either the winner or second placed team in Group A.

The team is expected to move to Gold Coast from Cairns for its remaining games.