Reserves Round 3 Match Report

Eagles 18.8 (116) def North 13.6 (84)
Goal scorers: Johansen 4, Moore 3, Coff 3, Nason 2, Langcake 2, Comitogianni, Lee, Wehr, Mead
Best Players: Comitogianni, House, Johansen, McNeil, West, Lee

For the second time in 3 weeks we took on North Adelaide in the Reserves and felt that we had gained a lot of confidence from our previous 2 weeks. The focus of the group was to be strong at the contest and give our forwards a chance to apply the craft with 1 on 1 contests.

We started the game really strongly with our young midfield controlling the inside of the contest. Going forward we were also extremely efficient kicking 7 goals 2 from 13 inside 50’s for the quarter which was a very strong start by the team.

The message at quarter time was clear, our mids needed to stay strong at the contest and we wanted a bit more run and drive from our defence so that we could get the ball deep to our forwards. What we saw was a rock solid team defence quarter holding North Adelaide to a solitary behind whilst being able to put another 4 goals 3 on the board ourselves and hold a 56 point half time lead.

As any good side does they won’t just roll over and let you have it all your way and that certainly wasn’t the case in the third term. North came at us hard kicking the first 6 goals in the quarter in just 10 minutes. At this stage it would have been easy for us to just fall away and let North Adelaide run over us with all the momentum. What I saw from this group in the last 15 minutes was a lot of maturity to be able to level the scoring for the remaining 16 minutes of the game.

At 3 quarter time we talked and learn’t that if we do get in a situation where a team is coming hard how do we react. The glaring thing was we get back on the attack and win the football and give our forwards the one on one looks that got us in the position in the first place. We reacted very well and ended up controlling the final term and running out 32 point victors and takes us to a 3-0 start.

Vinnie Rugolo
Reserves Head Coach