Coaches Blog Round 14 2017

Really good response from the boys on the weekend with all 3 grades responding well.

Even though the young Ducks went down in the colts by 58 points, they battled hard for the first 3 quarters before being overpowered in the last. They are very, very young at the moment, and we are playing so many boys from across the state that we make it hard for them to gel every week, but that’s what we do.

In the last couple of games, we’ve seen 3 or 4 boys show really good signs in their first hit outs for the club, and we’ll continue to give kids opportunities even if it makes it hard to keep putting wins on the board.

Brenton Hilton is one of these boys I’m talking about. Still 16 but he came in on the weekend and played at half back and I was stoked with his footy. He’s a real competitor and made good decisions under pressure, and he’s a good size to boot.

The reserves were never troubled and played a game where we got excellent contributions from all that played. On the back of a dominant midfield brigade, the forwards had a nice time of it and all hit scoreboard. Sutton with 4 and Kirkup and Chaddy Daniels with 3 a piece all looked dominant.

Down back the boys did a very solid job with Grescos leading the way with 27 disposals. Josh Power continued his nice work at half back as well to be one of the better players on the day! New boy Ben McGillivray also showed some great signs to play well off a wing in his second game for the club. Troy Yukich had 40 odd hit outs and an encouraging 8 tackles to go with some nice play around the ground which supported his dominant ruckwork.

I could talk about all the boys to be honest, as it was an even performance and one which sets us up nicely for a crucial last round of footy. We sit 7th, but only a game off 4th so the destiny of the twos is in our own hands.

The league squad did a wonderful job to turn our fortunes around in the space of 7 days. It was a different side that stepped out against some real quality players, and our lads rediscovered our appetite for the contest. We got a strong injection of energy with the inclusions of Crowley, Hackett, Wytik and Coniglio adding spark, but the lift in intensity really did come from everyone.

We hunted well around the contest and found space going forward to have the opposition under constant scoring pressure. Like the reserves game, it was a complete performance from the boys with everyone contributing. With Ugle and Ames coming out late we had to dig in strongly and the boys did just that! Young Mitch Mckenzie did a super job on the weekend after getting thrown in the deep end. Up against the likes of Lycett, Giles and McInness, young Mitch more than held his own and showed excellent composure all day to play very well on debut.

In some bad news we have lost Matt Rogers in a training mishap last week which will see him miss the entirety of the 2017 season. He dislocated a shoulder in a tackle and did some real damage and will have surgery on the 4th of July. Really sad for Matt and a real kick in the guts for us given the strength of his performances over the past few years since he’s been in the black and white. We hope his recovery is rapid, and by all reports he should be ready to go for Rd 1 of 2018.

Now we move on to Perth at Lathlain this week to try to keep this well earned momentum going. They will be smarting off a solid loss to the Bulldogs and will be hard to beat. Our last two encounters have been arm wrestles in which we have won but not by convincing margins, and we need to reproduce last weeks effort to get the job done.

See you down at Lathlain Oval at 2.15!

Greg