Straight From The Sauce – Round 17 League & Reserves

In a tale of similarity to last week, we started the 1^st quarter well, showing that we are capable of competing with the best teams but our consistency and being able to sustain it for long periods of the game is the challenge that we have in front of us atm.

Deep in the 1^st quarter we were in a good position leading Sturt by 10 points, but 2 time on goals allowed them to get the momentum back and take a small lead into quarter time.

The 2^nd quarter we weren’t able to get field position back and with losing clearance and Sturt’s setup behind the ball, we found it hard to get inside 50s to give our forwards a chance. To our defenders credit they fought hard against a heavy tide.

The second half was a similar story, and we take learnings from the game that we want to improve on ahead of our last 2 games against South and North.

Better players on the day were Jordan Tilbrook, who did a great job on Josh Hone. Lukas Cooke continues on his great season, Cookey is becoming a leader for us in defence and in a challenging period he continues to fight to the end, Sam Nicholls has been a welcome return, was good for him to hit the scoreboard and spend a bit more time higher up the ground. Max Beattie worked hard, and we are seeing good improvement from more midfield time and Conner Ballenden, whilst not a big statistical day, remained a presence ahead of the ball for us.

With 2 weeks of the regular season remaining, we are looking to put a 4-quarter performance in against South and building belief back into the group and finishing the year strongly.

Sauce

Sam Jacobs – Eagles Senior Coach

Still to come…

Shane Hancock – Eagles Development Coach