Agree with previous comments, our ball skills were abysmal, the players and coaching staff have obviously forgotten the Peelmantle game where we had a game plan that worked a treat, we hit targets on a regular basis, had good movement and spread, all of which was missing for most of the game yesterday. When Claremont inexplicably went ultra defensive in the last we looked to have a sniff but Wardman failed to cover Rogers or make use of the loose man that created. We actually created more than enough chances to win the game but butchered them time and again. If Cl had stayed in attack mode in the last they would have won by 10 goals so the margin really flattered us.
We really missed Locks down back, we had no one capable of matching their big aggressive forward who's name escapes me, he really did what he wanted and the other normally reliable backs, like Savigni had off days. cant understand why Ash was dropped and would have given Bartlett another run, his strength and hustle would have been handy although I thought Robbins was pretty good. Despite Eaton battling manfully, we were slaughtered in the ruck, Eastland is arguably the best ruckman in the comp at taps and around the ground, why he hasn't been considered at AFL is beyond me. Foley, L.Hickmont, Clark, Kitchen and Corbett were all serviceable but after that, it dropped away. Borch is out of his depth in the ruck, plus fumbled and missed marks too many times, definitely needs a spell in the 2's to get his confidence back, saying that he did pop up with 2 goals, but was disappointing for most of the game like so many others. I thought Kentfield was supposed to be back, he would have given us a big strong target up forward and some help in the ruck, hopefully back after the bye. Great to see Hayden get through his first game in over a season but with just 6 touches expect he will need a couple more games back there. I thought Sok being out really unbalanced our forward line, but with the horrific delivery it probably made little difference. The WAFL injury hub has Schoey as 2-3 weeks, Braut 4-5 weeks and Wagontrains 5-6 weeks, so apart from Sok who will be right to go after the bye, we wont get near to full strength for at least a month or more. next 4 games are season defining imho, EF, SF, EP and SD all at home which will help, we need to win at least 2 of those 4 games to stay in the finals hunt in what is a really even comp.
