Coaches Blog Round 13 2017

Disappointing day all round at the new Claremont oval and we came away with donuts from all three grades. The colts started well and matched it with the young Tigers for a half, but like last week the pressure took its toll and the opposition ran away with the contest in the last 50 minutes. Oscar Matthews continued his consistently strong form in the ruck and also added a nice contested mark and goal when resting forward.

We also saw a tall prospect in Matt Germs who comes out of a Basketball background, and he showed enough to say that his future is bright. We also saw another 3 boys make their debuts for the colts so the coaches are doing a good job exposing more and more kids to the level.

Our reserves started slowly but a 7 goal second quarter put them in control at the main break. The Tigers kicked to the scoring end and gained a small break in the 3rd, and then dug in grimly to get the points in the last quarter! The boys tried hard and had lots of entries but we just couldn’t quite find a way to score, and we eventually went down by 13 points.

Great to see Hackett back playing some good footy and Chad Daniels returned off that horrific dislocated elbow to show promising signs. His brother Jason continues to build and Levi Ridley found some nice touch with 20 disposals. Ethan Maguire was very strong in the midfield and Steven Wityks 4 goals really got us going especially in the 2nd quarter. Yaz cant take a trick and strained a hammy very early and didn’t return so that didn’t help things.

The loss puts us a game back outside the finals but close enough that with a few good performances, we can climb back into that top 5.

Our league effort started poorly and ended worse. We were in touch on the scoreboard even though our ball handling and decision making were below senior standard, and we stayed in touch until half time. We believed that given how poorly we had played that a lift in energy could bring us back into the game, but we couldn’t produce that lift and the game slipped away.

The end result was embarrassing for us all to be honest, as Claremont got their tails up and belted us good and proper in the last half. We’ve got to respond this week because we are all acutely aware that we have let ourselves and the supporters down and we need to bounce back with effort.

We didn’t have too many winners, but I thought Warrick Wilson had his best game for the club in tough circumstances, and he compiled 25 touches. Corey Gault did a very strong job in the ruck to have 16 possessions and 7 marks against the best ruck in the competition in Andrews. Faulky battled hard and was supported by Davey Ellard with 10 tackles, but we just didn’t have enough solid contributors to build any momentum in the game at any stage.

Cant sugar coat this one in any way! We went in favourites and came out with a butt kicking. We were really poor and uncompetitive and that’s not us, but the boys will bounce back at home this week against East Perth. We’ve lost our way a little bit at present, but one thing I have learnt is that form can turn very quickly either way and I’m 100% confident that our lads will be hurting off last week, and produce a ripper against the Royals.

In good news Crowls will return for the first time in 5 weeks to add some grunt which is very good timing.