Harry “Gorilla” Mepham’s promotion to head coach has brought about a resurgence for Team Vitality, one that saw them defy the odds to reach the VCT EMEA Stage 2 Finals where the eventual winners Fnatic proved to be one step too far for the French organization. We spoke to Gorilla following the defeat.
Lee Joens: Map one was a slow start, similar to the previous series against Heretics.
Do you think that was due to the lack of a warm-up like last time?
Gorilla: 100%. It’s just because in BO5s, with potential to go on for, like, 6 hours, we don’t want to start our day too early and then do a warm-up. It might be something we change given the last two results, because of hindsight. But in general, that was the approach.
What was different for map two that meant it swung in your favor?
Gorilla: Yeah. I’d say that we’re also comfortable on Ascent. Haven, as you can probably tell from our last few games: not our most comfortable map. And obviously with the veto advantage for them, they took away our two best maps. So it’s like, at some point we gotta make compromises and, yeah, map two, we’re certainly getting in the groove of things.
Image credit: Riot Games
Lee Jones: Do you think that was maybe the main reason that the guys weren’t able to keep it up then?
Not having any of the comfortable maps after that?
Gorilla: No. This is the thing, we can play all the maps. We’re really hoping to show our Abyss. We should have just made it entertaining and picked it. But no, we’re relatively comfortable on all the maps. It’s just when you’re having a series and you don’t have that safety net of the, you know:
“Oh, yeah, we have our Icebox soon. We have our Sunset”, you know, our two really good maps and at some point it gets really hard.
Lee Jones: Map four was obviously the toughest..
Was that the tiredness really starting to catch up?
Gorilla: Yeah, I think tiredness definitely plays into a part of it. I think also the crushing defeat on Lotus. We’re starting to get more momentum as the game went on, on defense, and I think one small mistake and then suddenly the game’s over because we let them get to twelve. And, you know, that.
So tiredness; obviously we’ve been going fourth map now, it’s longer than we normally play for. Plus Fnatic had, what, one week in the middle of the spill it where they didn’t have a game? And then they had the last two days, they’ve had time to rest and recover. So, you know, we’re looking forward to having that as us.
Read also: VIT Sayf: I have no time to breathe
Was the Clove a bit of a surprise that map as well?
Gorilla:Yeah, that was a complete curveball for us. It makes sense, we prepped that Bind and, yeah, the Clove and the Brimstone are similar agents. But because Alfajer is playing it now whereas before I believe Boaster was playing the smokes, it kind of threw us off a bit because we try and think; “Right, what can they do with the Clove? How are they gonna play? How are they gonna defend?” And we just never really got into it. We never really found out what they were doing and what they were playing for. And at the end of the day, like, it didn’t seem like the team was dead at any point during that game. Like, we’re 0-10 down, we’re laughing about stuff in the comms, right? So it’s much love to the boys for that.
While I’m sure there’s immediate disappointment since the match has just finished, but are you able to take pride in just getting here?
Gorilla: Yeah, for sure. My personal expectations weren’t that high because, obviously, [it’s] my first time as a proper head coach. I wasn’t expecting to go this far. I wasn’t expecting to go Champs. So I think top two for us is absolutely remarkable. This is the same team that came 10th last split, lost to KOI in the most important game we could have had. So honestly, I’m really proud of everyone and the stuff that we’ve done, what we’ve worked on in the last two months. Normally, teams take like six, seven months in the off season to set up. So I think everyone should be really proud of themselves today.
Now that Champions is already not far away, is there a difficulty in finding the right balance of giving the team enough much-needed rest but making sure the practice starts early enough?
Given how intense this season’s been for us and how much stuff we’ve had to work on, stuff we’ve had to change, implement… I think we prioritize rest. We will still practice and practice days will be lighter before we fly. I think we fly next week. So I want to prioritize rest. [Let] people go home, see their families. [It’s] really important that we connect in that regard again and prepare for the tournament ahead at the same time.
Lee Jones: Because the other one [EURO 2024] didn’t.
Is this one coming home then?
The other one didn’t. But we’ll see. We don’t have Southgate so it might look a bit promising.
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