sAw on the year since BLAST Open London win: "It's not been satisfying"
G2 won BLAST Open London back in 2025, but they won’t be defending their crown here in Porto following a 2-0 loss to Falcons in the quarter-finals.
A tough series for them; there are positives to be taken from this event following the performances from r1nkle, but their coach sAw tells BLAST.tv that there are still frustrations that the team hasn’t really been able to kick on following that trophy in London.
After the game, we spoke to sAw to discuss that, where r1nkle can improve, and why G2 struggled in their match against Falcons.
“It was two maps with sloppy starts”
A tough loss there. What are your takeaways from that series?
I think that it was two maps with sloppy starts, and then it was just too much to catch up on both maps, even if we put up a decent fight. The sloppiness backfired on us. They had good individual moments on both maps, and we just couldn't step up to match it; that was mostly it.
Falcons have also made a roster change this year as well, but when it comes to results against all of these teams ahead of you that maybe haven't changed, do you think there's an element of your limited time together as a team that's holding you back, or is there an element of a firepower deficit, too?
Not necessarily firepower, in a sense, because I do think we have good firepower, and our core has been together a while, but we have changed two players, and that does throw a bit of a mix into the team. We need to make sure we're good with all the protocols and get experience together because of that.
We also need to get experience for our individuals; we don't have many who have played in tier one for a long time; it's only really huNter- and NertZ. It's a learning curve for them all, and that's a part of it, too.
r1nkle has proven a lot of his doubters wrong so far, but what room for improvement are you seeing with him?
He still needs to learn a lot to play against these tier one teams and be patient against them in the smaller moments, whether he can go for the extra peek or not. These are the crucial moments. And of course, in some of them he can get the kill that wins the round, but he can lose it too, and those are the judgment calls he needs to make. Getting in that headspace takes experience, and that takes time.
You won this event last year in London; are there any frustrations that you haven't kept up that level in the year since?
Yeah, of course, you always want to go deeper in tournaments. We would want to be a top five team right now, making semis and winning tournaments, so it's not been satisfying that way. To lose many of the playoffs you get into, what can you do other than keep working and try to reach that level? That's what we're trying to do.
