Coaches Blog Round 8 2017

The old saying’ “you only get out what you put in” was pretty apt on Saturday with just the one win coming from a committed reserves outfit.

The colts were really flat and trailed all day before an amazing 5 minutes of footy from Tommy Whittle almost pinched it! Incredibly, he nailed 4 goals after being swung forward from defence and with 2 minutes to go it looked like our kids had stolen the win. But the footy gods got it right and the young lions went down the other end and scored to quite rightly secure a deserved win. Their effort was far superior and they were the better team.

Whittle, Bain, Huntley and ruckman Oscar Matthews tried hard all day to be in the best! The Peel colts are arguably the best in the comp so this week will be a challenge for the boys to deal with an early 8.30 start and play with renewed energy!

The twos were fantastic and the group is starting to move forward nicely, with lots of senior standard performances starting to emerge from Fullgrabe, Cipro, Slater, Ridley and a number of others.

Even though we were down by as much as 31 points at one stage, there was a real confidence that they’d be able to come back and win. Some really poor ball use from the backs early opened us up for some easy goals and if not for that, the game would have been quite even at the first change.

After that however, the boys took control and slowly worked their way over the top of the opposition to win by 9 points. It was great to see Dave McKay return after 12 months out with a ACL injury and get through his first taste of footy unscathed! Our ball use and ability to concentrate for long periods is improving rapidly and as a result we are playing better and better footy. They put in a heap of effort collectively, and got rewarded.

The league game was a case of not playing at the right intensity and getting absolutely belted for 120 minutes by a very good footy team. The lions are mature and communicate at a high level and when they play with energy teams must be able to match and exceed that energy to be a chance.

We missed the mark in this area, and we paid the price. Our forwards battled hard with Cary, Noble and Stewart all contributing even though we had limited inside 50’s and we had strong contributions from Wilson and 

Ellard across the middle. Down back Notte, Ugle and Howard held their heads up high under pressure but in the end we just didn’t have enough contributors to trouble them at any stage.

I must mention the debut of Ethan Maguire as well which showed promise. To be thrown into his first senior game against Kitchen, Cockie, Horsley and Phelan was one of the harder initiations first up for a youngster that I have seen in a long time, and he had some nice touches! Look for good things to come for this young fella in the future as he’ll learn a lot from this game!

Over the 7 games we’ve been outstanding with our genuine effort on 5 occasions and we’ve found a way to win. On the two occasions we’ve waivered, we’ve been beaten by WP and Subiaco. Our challenge now is to bounce back this week, and then find a way to be more consistent across the season with our intensity and concentration levels.

Peel will be tough. They always are down there and we will have to find the right approach to get the chocolates. If we can get it right we’ll have a good day and at the end of it, the carrot is a 6 and 2 start and quickly addressing our worst performance of the year in quick time.

Get down to Mandurah or settle in on the couch to watch us on 7mate in our first TV  game of the year!