cajunb: Have to get back on the horse

North's chain of unimpressive tournament placings continued in Australia, as the Danish side went out to the underdogs Chiefs, finishing 1-3. However, North did have a tough draw in the Swiss system, playing against OpTic, SK and FaZe before that.

We sat down with René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg who confessed that the team has been having troubles recently and will be employing a sports psychologist to help them out after this tournament.

Let's start with your general feeling about the event, you are out of the tournament, but all four maps you played were pretty close. How do you feel about going out? Walk me through the tournament a bit.

I actually felt that we played quite decent through the tournament, it was only the match against Chiefs where we choked a bit, if you want to call it that. Against SK it was 16-14, against FaZe it was 19-16. To be honest, it wasn't that bad, it was only the game against Chiefs that was really disappointing. The other games could've gone either way.

Let's talk about the game against Chiefs. You had a 10-5 lead on the T side of Nuke, that's one of your better maps. What happened in the second half, how did it go out of control?

First of all, they played very well. I wouldn't say we underestimated them, because we didn't do that, but they did play very well. They had an inside take that we had a lot of trouble with. We just switched places on CT as well, magiskboy came inside, k0nfig went ramp and I got yard now. It's like, we still haven't figured out how to have a stable CT side so we had to change something. We tried to do this, and it was actually our first official game after changing positions on CT. 

But yeah, at the start they had the A take and we couldn't hold it, then they started to fake it, they played really clever.

You said you changed positions and this is the first official match, but did it go well in practice? Did you have enough time with the new positions that you could know?

That's a big surprise, because in practice we got 10-12 rounds every time on CT, so I don't think anyone could've seen this coming. I know you can't compare practice and official, but at some time you have to do it, practice has to give you some sort of an idea. 

Moving on to changes, one of the biggest changes is that you've been AWPing a lot less than before. When you first came into what was dignitas, you took over the AWP role and it seemed like a great fit, making the team a good unit. What do you think about this change?

To be honest, I'm still AWPing actually, only on certain maps I'm not AWPing, like Inferno because we had a problem with pit and A site and we couldn't take care of it. I've played there my whole career and I said I could do it since I have experience doing it. And k0nfig likes to have the AWP sometimes so he's just taking it up a notch. It's not a change of roles, it's just a position on CT.

Going back, at EPICENTER you had your first big breakout win, do you feel that in a way that that came too soon in your development as a team? Since after that everyone thought of you as a top team,  people were looking at what you do and how to stop you? How do you think that influenced what came after? You didn't have so many great placings after EPICENTER…

I think we all expected we'd have more second or third places after that, we were in a really good period at that time, but it wasn't what we thought it would be. Of course, we are disappointed, but we are still a top six team, however we are not that close to winning tournaments. To be honest, we are quite far away from being able to do that, I don't know if we need more time, because you can always say that, but I think we need to change something.

I don't think it's players we need to change, because we've had aizy for some time as well right now. It could be playstyle, the way we practice, or it could be the small things that help. We are going to start working with a sports psychologist and that might give us the small percentage that helps us actually win the match.

Talking to MSL, he mentioned your team not feeling comfortable when you are the favorites, not doing well in those matches. What are your thoughts on that, how does it replicate inside of the team, inside the matches?

I think he's right that we have trouble being the favorites. I don't know why we are having these struggles because when we play them online, it doesn't feel like that. For example, in ESL Pro League I think we are leading at the moment, I'm not quite sure, but there we are playing all those teams and we are not having troubles with them.

It could maybe be the experience with some players. I think that might be the thing because we still have a lot of young players. Magisk is struggling a bit at the moment and he said that he's never had this kind of a period. I actually respect that, because everyone has a point at which they are struggling. You just have to get back on the horse again. I'm sure he'll do it.

You mentioned young players, aizy is also pretty young player, even though he's been on the scene a lot so people don't think about him as one. But in the matches you lost and got eliminated, he seems to be having bad games. Have you talked about that, have you talked to him, what are the issues?

He's been mentioning himself that he's been struggling for a while, but I wouldn't say it was that bad. Because we weren't been winning a tournaments, but in the group stage at StarLadder he was the only one who was performing in the team. I don't think any one of us is disappointed with him at all, but of course, he's had his struggles, he knows that himself, but that's a normal thing and it happens in your career sometimes.

Going back to this tournament, you had a really tough draw in a way, SK, FaZe, OpTic, three pretty strong teams. What is your feeling about the Swiss system, in the end OpTic went through with wins against ViCi, Chiefs and Chiefs again?

I'm OK with the Swiss actually, but it might be because we've been through five or six times, this was the first time we didn't go through. But I feel like the team who loses the first game always gets an easier draw. I don't know if there is a way to fix it. At StarLadder as well, we got Immortals in the first game and then Astralis, Na`Vi and FaZe. We had a tough bracket, but that is how it is, to win the tournament you have to beat them anyway.

What are you doing next as a team, what are your plans going up to the Major?

We are going to bootcamp a lot. We knew even before this event that we are going to bootcamp a lot, everyone said that we need to get more hours in the game and that is what we are going to do now. I think we are going to do two or three bootcamps before the Major just to make sure that that is not an excuse.

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.