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It was a brutal loss for Melbourne Avant in the Gfinity Elite Series last weekend, with a 16-9 loss to the Sydney Chiefs putting them at the crossroads.
The good news for fans is that this week’s clash between Avant and the Sydney Roar is a mouth-watering winner-takes-all affair.
CS:GO player Daniel “danz” Whitfield spoke exclusively to The Roar, dissecting the loss last weekend and discussing what they need to improve on for this weekend.
The Roar: That was a pretty tough loss to take. What didn’t go right for you then that had in the last two weeks?
danz: I mean, not much has gone right in the last two weeks. We’ve had a lot of individual plays that have won us games, and we’re getting better as a team, but I think one big thing was the pistol rounds – we lost both pistol rounds. It’s been a real big problem for us every week, but this week more because a team like the Chiefs – they abuse you for that.
I I think they’re also a much better team than what we’ve played so far. Nothing against the other teams, just this team’s got a pretty decent line-up.
I’m not too sure what else [went wrong]. I mean, I think the pistols was a big thing for the team obviously and then also just a bit of lack of focus, making silly mistakes or our communication wasn’t up to scratch.
The Roar: You took a very early technical time out – after round five. What did you guys talk about in that technical time out?
danz: We talked about our communication, because up to then it wasn’t very good at all. We were just really slow on getting info out on different clutch situations, like not saying who’s got contact and different situations – which is pretty poor communication.
We [also] spoke about not being nervous and just focusing a little bit more on outcomes. Making sure everybody was clear and concise with what they were saying, just so we could focus more on the game, that was it.
The Roar: You did win four rounds in a row towards the end, facing match point. How important is that for the confidence of the team going forward, in that you did actually string a few together at the end?
danz: Yeah it made us much more motivated to win. It’s a bit rough when you’re facing a massive deficit but then for us to get four in a row was just perfect. It gave us the fire to keep going.
As soon as we won’t the last round of the [first] half everyone was just saying like, ‘just get the pistol and went back into it’. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the pistol which resulted in a loss, but getting those rounds just really motivated the team.
The Roar: It was a pretty vocal pro-Chiefs crowd in the arena today. Does that have much of an effect on you when you’re on stage?
danz: Not really. I mean, when we start talking on the microphones you can hear a little bit of screaming in the background but it’s not that big of a deal. I mean, we knew it was for Chiefs anyway so, it doesn’t really affect us that much.
The Roar: From the outside, it looks like your team’s been building from week to week, getting better, obviously until today. What’s the mood like inside the team? What do you need to do to get back to that level that you were?
danz: Yeah, it’s really good. We’ve had a bit of a problem lately, just because online we haven’t been performing as well in different leagues, but here we’ve been playing quite well, it’s just we lost the first week. But we’re really motivated to make the finals. I don’t know if, how we’re doing so far. I think we need to win next week to make the finals, so we’re really motivated to do that. We don’t want to go home early at all.
Just as a whole, in the team, the environment’s really good. We’re all really good friends, everyone’s motivated to win, we’re only a new team still, which we keep mentioning, but we’re getting there. Everything’s sort of clicking into place.
This week was an outlier, we just had a rough game, but I think next week we should come back stronger, or I mean, I hope we’ll come back stronger.
The Roar: It does look like it’s a do or die clash between you and Sydney Roar – the winner goes into the finals next week. Have you had an opportunity to look at their games at all this season? Have you noticed anything?
danz: I haven’t really looked at their games much. We basically just prepare a little bit for who we’re playing, but, we like to play our own game a fair bit. I think that’s Moey’s calling style as well.
He’s really experienced and does everything that’s best for our team, with our pieces. So I think we might look at what they’re doing just have a quick glimpse and hopefully we can beat them next week.