Straight From The Sauce – Round 6 League & Reserves

To steal a line from Craig McRae, and one that I mentioned to be the boys post-game, sometimes you can be a winner when you lose, and sometimes you can be a loser when you win, and I feel on the day we walk away feeling like winners. That doesn’t mean we aren’t disappointed with a close loss again, but we can take confidence and validation that when we play well enough for long enough, we can match it with the competition’s best.

It was really positive to start the game well, and we were able to convert our chances and go to quarter time with a lead. In the second quarter, Glenelg fought back and kicked 6 goals to 1, we know they were going to have periods where they got on top, but we needed to limit these, but again we went into half time knowing if we made some adjustments we can get back into the game.

In the first half of the third quarter, we were able to gain the momentum back and also convert some shots, closing the margin back to 8 points before Glenelg responded like good teams too and closed the third quarter with the game back on their terms. At three quarter time we once again identified the areas to improve at, and taking the game on a bit more was one of those and it worked to good effect. To kick 4.3 to 0.3 in the final term and give ourselves a chance to win was pleasing. We got the margin back to 2 points at the 14-minute mark and then the game tightened up with both teams not being able to get one more important goal. We finished the game down by 4 points.

Better players on the day were Cam Fleeton who did a great job to hold Lachie Hosie to 1 goal and 9 touches, Cam was also able to contribute on offence and we’re now looking for him to continue to build on this game. Kobe Mutch, James Rowe, Riley Knight, Joe Sinor and Jack Hayes all played at their usual high standard, with them all having periods throughout the game where they contributed strongly. Max Beattie had his best game this year, defending really well and giving us good drive off half back. Special mention to Nick Hayes as well, who played his first game with the club since 2020. It’s great to have him back and already he has proven that he will be an important player for us on the way home.

Enjoy a weekend off, and we look forward to seeing everyone back at Maughan Thiem Kia Oval vs South Adelaide after the State bye.

Sauce

Sam Jacobs – Eagles Senior Coach

Football can sometimes be the biggest humbler. We went into round 6 with an undefeated record feeling really good coming up against a strong Glenelg side who were sitting second knowing that this was going to be our toughest test to date.

As every week we wanted to start fast and defend hard. Unfortunately it was the other way round. Glenelg were able to start extremely fast hitting the scoreboard in the first minute and from there it was an uphill battle. In the second quarter we were able to start to claw back and in the third quarter we felt we had control of the game and were within striking distance. However, there was a lot of effort put in getting us to this position and we weren’t able to keep the momentum going with Glenelg kicking away in the last. Credit to Glenelgthey are a very solid side, prepared from the start and ready to play.

David Brinker-Ritchie is starting to find his form in the ruck which is really good to see, Tate Delmenico is continuing to get better and better each week as well as Jake Andrews looking really solid down back.

A lot of positives to still come out of the game, but like I stated above it was a great humbler to show us that we still have work to do and cant switch off at any point.

Another big challenge lies ahead in 2 weeks time coming up against South Adelaide at Maughan Thiem Kia Oval. We will be ready to go and up for the fight to get back to playing our best footy.

Go Eagles!!!

Shane Hancock – Development Coach