Positives from last night

[brownbob]

A pleasing win against Geelong. Happy with the passion and intensity the boys showed. A hard, tight game that required lots of courage, as was the case with Bret Jones sliding in for the ball - good courage; however, it was a shame young Kelly broke his leg in the incident.
It was a particulaly pleasing win because in the first part of the 1st quarter we were being blown out of the water on the tackle count, and we were able to reverse that and take the lead in the tackle count. We also led the marks count - nice change.
Our defense was excellent - tight checking - with Glass and Lynch showing that they are our answers for the defensive KPPs. I thought Glass was most impressive.
Sam Butler is getting better and better with each game; he is going to be yet another excellent midfielder for us.
Sampi played with far more desperation which was good to see.
Nicoski had a good game - he is one very talented player.
Braun was simply outstanding, with 11 tackles as well, Kerr had 9 tackles and both of them applied great pressure.
Doogs is applying himself better with more intensity and is starting to look more comfortable at this level. I believe he'll start to blossom in 2005.
Hansen presents well and had a good game. He continues to show good prospects. However, we still need another strong-marking forward - hopefully Franklin from our U18s, he was second best behind Morton in our loss to SA today.
Matera had an off night again.
Hunter - great to have him back. He played a great game down back.
All in all, with such a young, inexperienced team, things are looking up for 2005.

 

[jod23]

Now we need to do all that on the road....

 

[bunsen burner]

Lynch - second really good game this year. Must be good for his confidence.

Glass - starting to become a very consistent no thrills fullback.

McDougall - lately has been putting in more of an effort. Making an actual contest in the contests, and applying more tackles at ground level. Was beaten by Scarlett, but good to see he didn't totally drop his shoulders and get completely spanked.

Hansen - kicked a couple of goals and is developing nice and steadily for a KPP.

These are the most important players in our team at the moment. Their development hinges on the success of our team in the future. If they develop into a strong spine we will compete for the flag, but if they don't we will waste a great midfield.

The rest of the team has been down on form and confidence since losing a couple of close ones early in the season. It was good to see that the team played better than Geelong for about 3/4 of the game. Some say that Geelong should have won, but I disagree. We were clearly the better team on the night and should have put them away in the third quarter. And that is the only complaint I have - we didn't put the score on the board during the last half of the second quarter and entire third quarter when we had the vast majority of play.

A few other highlights:

Braun - a great game. Good to see we have 2nd string midfielders who can be bog.

Morrison - had his first good game for some time. If he played like that consistently I'd no longer want him delisted.

Sampi - was so good in first quarter the Fox callers had him as the leading player on the field. But what happened to him after that?

Wirra - huge game for WP. I'd like to see him have a couple more in the WAFL so he comes back firing.

Butler - was good. Another good palyer in our midfield.

Gardiner and Embley - If our KPP's do step up next year (say like Rivers and Miller at the Dees), and gardiner and Embley are fit and firing, the confidence of the team should be up and we should be top 4.