Singapore coach Frank Arsego. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Singapore coach Frank Arsego was pretty straightforward with how he wants his team to approach its ongoing campaign in the 2017 Seaba Championship.
Acknowledging the huge gap in talent, the Australian mentor is taking every game as a chance for the Singaporeans to grow.
“I think we’re in a little bit of a transitional situation with a couple of older players going out and us trying to find some younger players to come in. So the goals are really to come here, compete, and be able to deliver on the things that we worked on briefly,” he said.
Though Singapore was on the receiving end of a 113-66 beatdown from Gilas Pilipinas on Saturday, Arsego can take solace seeing that his team showed some fight against a seemingly invincible team.
“I think tonight we showed that we can compete and I was very happy about that. We’re playing one of the best teams in the region, and I thought we set some targets and we achieved them. Probably, they got a few too many points than we wanted to, but we got the points that we wanted to. So even with the point spread, with the boys in the team, we’ve gotten so much better than our first game and I’m looking forward to continuing to maintain that standing for the rest of the tournament,” he said.
Singapore is now 0-2, but Arsego reminded his wards to still look at the positives.
Arsego feels his team is improving and learning valuable lessons game by game despite getting blown out by Indonesia and the Philippines.
“Really, are we about winning? Are we about getting medals? No. I think we’re about improvement. And so from game one to game two, we improved. Once you get into that space, I think your next goal is how consistent can we get to that level of play for the remainder of the tournament. If I can tick a few of those boxes off, I’ll be a pretty happy coach,” he said.
“It’s great to have a team like that in our region so that all nations can continue to develop. The better the competition, the better the players can become and I think that showed tonight. That was an example of what can happen when you play the better teams, you have to learn how to handle it,” he said. “I can only wish the Philippines all the best for their next tournament.”