Southern United coach Ignacio Sande described his side’s 5-0 loss to Capital Football in Wellington on Saturday as progress.
But clearly the Dunedin-based side has much work ahead if it is going to be more competitive when it hosts Northern Lights on Sunday.
Southern has conceded nine goals in its opening two games, so defence is an area his side will need to address this week.
But it is the blundered opportunities at the other end which caused the most frustration at the weekend.
Sande felt the 5-0 scoreline was a little misleading.
"It is not the result we were wanting or expecting," he said.
"We are very disappointed but, to be honest, the result was not a reflection of the game.
"We paid the price of missing the chances we had. We created enough to come back after Capital scored the first two goals.
"But we missed all the chances and, in the end, the 5-0 score was more a reflection of pushing some players up and them scoring on counterattack."
Capital led 2-0 at halftime. Mickey Robertson opened the scoring when she drilled a shot into the bottom-right corner after a great build-up from the home team.
Kaley Ward found the back of the net four minutes later.
Southern mounted some promising attacks as well but perhaps lacked a little patience and pushed too many balls over the top instead of looking for the short passes.
Sam Murrell and Amy Hislop worked well together for the visiting side but those finishing touches kept eluding Southern.
Ward nodded in from a corner to score her second and stretch the lead to 3-0 with 15 minutes remaining.
She banged in a third from the penalty spot to complete a hat-trick in the 79th minute, and Samantha Whyte scored in her debut late in the game to complete the scoring.
"We have to be proud of what we did because of the improvement we made here and there," Sande said.
"In the first game we did not create enough but [on Saturday] we created enough but we couldn’t score.
"The opposition goalkeeper did well but also there was some mistakes from us, so we definitely we will work on our finishing.
"And on the other side we’ve conceded nine goals in two games so there is something that is not working properly so we will review that."
