Coaches Blog Round 2 2017

2 and half wins on the weekend after the 16’s match ended in a draw. Jake Pasini played extremely well at full back and Pilbara boy Nelson White was a standout playing predominantly as a forward. The Brockbernd twins played really well. We aren’t really sure at times who is who, but collectively they were great! Steve Thomson was very happy with the group’s performance and they are looking forward to playing East Perth this week.

In the colts, the young boys played one of the best games I’ve seen at the level in a long, long time. They trailed by 2 goals at the first change before going on an unanswered 13 goal streak, and then eventually running out 73 point victors. Joey Hinder kicked 5 and he is in really sharp form. His little shimmy sidestep is fun to watch and he loves selling some candy! The boys down back in Taylor, Whittle, Wilson and Bain were again impassable and won the footy most times it came in.

One of the highlights of the day was their fellow defender Jaygar Martin who went back with flight in a desperate defensive effort and nearly got killed! He bounced straight up and finished the game strongly! Reidy and Rodereda were both solid and it was a game that each of the boys contributed strongly.

Clarke with 19 touches and 3 goals and Humphries and Wilson with 20 were the highest possession winners which showed that it was a very even performance where the boys ability to control the footy was first rate. It was some of the best ball movement I’ve seen at the level.

In the reserves we were again disappointing and we must bounce back this week. There’s too much talent in this group to be losing games as comfortably as we are at the present time. The strongest lads on the park were fullback Mitch Mckenzie who in my opinion was best man on the ground with 23 touches and countless strong defensive efforts. He was supported by Jake Ness who racked up 29 quality touches from halfback and kept his opponent very quiet in the process. We are down on effort, and once we get this right the rest will follow along nicely.

The league squad were outstanding in their efforts on the weekend and came away with a 21 point win against a team we rate very highly, and expect to be right in the mix come finals time.

We were slow out of the blocks and the Bulldogs had the better of the first 20 minutes, but the boys did enough to force them wide and keep them to 1 goal for the quarter. At the other end, we finished nicely and turned with a 2 goal break. Cary was outstanding in this period after getting to quarter time with 6 marks to his name, with a number of them contested.

In the second, we had a strong wind to kick into, but the boys held up incredibly well. The defenders were collectively outstanding in this period and to kick 3 goals to 1 meant that a strong scoring quarter with the wind in the 3rd would give us a handy break late in the game.

That proved to be the case as we piled on 7 straight with Cary and Crowley hitting the scoreboard twice, and Rick turning provider with a smart ruck-tap to Adam Faulkner for a classy snap.  The lead was out to 41 points at the last change and we just had to stay composed to win, which we did. The boys did a great job over the last 30 minutes! Crowl’s had done a hamstring at the first contest of the game and Nuich had a serious injury as well so we were really battling for running power, but they dug in and defending strongly to stifle the bleeding and run out comfortable winners.

Like in the colts match, I could name every player in our best, such was the evenness of contribution from the 22 so I’ll cop out and say: Team Effort….not too many at the game will argue with me I don’t reckon! I will however give special mention to Crowls, Nuich and Adam Faulkner who all played though a fair amount of pain for the entire game and found a way to contribute.

East Perth away this week so another challenge against a lot of full time athletes. Perfect weather forecast so no excuse not to get out and support the boys at Leederville Oval!

-Greg