Saturday's win over Sturt at House Brothers Oval was one of our finest in the last 3 seasons. The total commitment of the players was outstanding. Our performance indicators of effort were at their highest and the evenness of  contribution levels  was very impressive. It was very apt that such a total performance was produced when we were honouring Ben Mules' 100th game and Matthew Bode's 50th game. The total team performance typified the way in which Ben and Matthew have forged their playing careers.

Our challenge now is to prepare in a way which is conducive to repeating the effort against Central, an opposition that has been the benchmark team in this competition over the last decade. We look forward to the challenge and we also look forward to your continued support.

Mark Mickan

Senior Coach

Well not a great result this week. We set out to play consistant football for the duration of the game, but unfortunately we lapsed at critical times late in the quarters which at the end of the game cost us, which happened to be the difference. It is something that we will be working on over the next few weeks because the group is capable of playing better 4 quarter football and individually they will need to display this when they progress to a higher level. This weekends game is very important to us to bounce back, so we will be training hard on a few structures and concentrating on putting a solid 4 quarters together in order to get the right result.

Michael Godden

Reserves Coach

We knew we were coming up against quality opposition and the quality of their disposal and ESPECIALLY their finishing in attack compared to ours really was too much of a difference.

For us to miss so many easy shots at goal was not acceptable, our general disposal in field play was sloppy on too many occasions and we dropped marks and mishandled the ball too many times leading to turnovers. 

Another area that requires significant improvement is too many players “trying to do too much” … this means that there are still too many times that the first give is not being given. Although this improved after half time, it affected the fluency of our play and reduced our ability to move the ball quickly downfield and into attack..

Yet – as summarized during the game and after – it is obvious that we had enough of the play to make an impact and their assessment of us will most definitely be one of “a team that will apply pressure, work hard to connect with each other, have the drive and desire to match it with them”. This was very evident in the first and third quarters … we most definitely CLEARLY won 15 + minutes of the play in each of those quarters but did not translate that dominance onto the scoreboard.

We understand that they have good players and that we were under pressure at times that led to some of the errors. It’s not that which was frustrating … it was the many times when we were in clear possession and didn’t give first time and the times we turned over the ball with poor disposal or skills.

As we said after the game, we need to really focus on the next 4 games and improve significantly in each of these areas. There have been plenty of positive indicators in the first 4 games and in these next 4 we need to see a strong commitment to the excellent traits that have been part of the games we have played ….. being hard at the ball, hard at the player , giving first time, quick movement into the forward line  ... this is what we MUST strive for.

There will be new faces in the team this week … bond well at training … work hard and support everyone. Come to play as a team with purpose !!!

Tony Lunniss

U19s Coach

A big challenge confronted the boys on Saturday with the undefeated Sturt 17’s at our home ground, Challenge Recruitment Oval. The conditions were difficult early and at quarter time we had played some good positive footy into the wind. Sturt then forged forward a couple of times and made us pay for some costly decisions under pressure and after looking out of sorts, we responded really well and came into the long break only 1 goal behind. We had lost Simon Lehmann with a shoulder injury in the first 2 minutes of the game and I was pleased with our endeavour and work rate. After half time, Sturt once again raced to a 3 goal lead and we were never able to bridge that gap for the day. We threatened to do this on a couple of occasions, but in the end were just 3 goals away. It was a good game of footy – tight around the stoppages, some good defensive actions from both sides and we ended up once again learning about different aspects of our game and where we constantly need to improve.

Best players included Hayden Jolly in the middle of the ground, Sam Barnett persisted time and time again at Full Forward, Ben Lockett did a great job in the middle of the defence, Daniel Scott-Collins started the game brilliantly before fading, Andrew Bradley had a good game from the Back Pocket and Matt Snook had a fine first half.

Ian Cox

U17 Coach