Those are the two focuses for Otago University tomorrow.
The side has at times played exceptional football this year, in particular in the 40 minutes after halftime. However, slow starts and the inability to finish strongly have hindered it.
The side is the only one without a point heading into the weekend's fourth round of the Southern Football League.
It faces Caversham at Hancock Park in the last of the Dunedin derby games tomorrow at 12.30pm.
University coach Darren Hart said it would be good to get some points on the board for confidence heading into the next run of games.
While the team had been competitive, there had been lapses that had prevented turning that into points.
"For me I think it's just young lads [not] being able to keep focused for the whole game.
"It's just been a couple of mistakes.
"They're not really from errors, but just momentary lapses in communication or decision making have cost us a bit."
He added the side had found itself chasing games after slow starts.
"We've had really good second halves in almost all of our games this year.
"First half, we're a little bit slow starting.
"So for us it's just trying to get out the gates early, not give away those two or three goals in the first goals as we have done."
Last week's 4-3 loss against Nomads in Christchurch brought out both of those.
University had a sluggish start, but came out after halftime and got the score back to 3-3.
However, a communication breakdown in the final minutes allowed Nomads to sneak a winner.
Rectifying those types of things was important for Hart.
While he felt many of the issues had come from the side's youth, the key thing was that the players were learning.
"My big thing really is if we lose, no-one wants to lose, but if we lose and get better from it at least there's a purpose to it.
"What we don't want to do is keep making the same mistakes over and over again, because then we're not learning anything."
It would be the first week since before the holidays it had a full squad to choose from.
However, it will face a tough challenge from Caversham, which had a competitive 2-0 loss against Western last week.
The sides have played each other twice this year and won one each.
Mosgiel will host Nelson Suburbs today at 2.45pm at Memorial Park.
Nelson has won all three games in the league - including against defending champion Cashmere Technical - and is yet to concede a goal.
The other two games are Christchurch derbies.
Nomads will host Cashmere Tech and Western will host Coastal Spirit, which is joint with Nelson on top of the table.
