It’s been a pretty up-and-down start to the year. The losses weren’t great, and even the wins were a bit frustrating. But all said, I think there is real cause for optimism.
At a high-level, we have weathered reasonably well what is (hopefully) our worst injury run for the year. We’ve been forced to play guys who aren’t quite ready, our key defenders and forwards don’t have the support they need, and we still don’t have a settled line-up. And yet for all but maybe a quarter here and there we have played strong football.
Last year our young midfield got a little overwhelmed. Against our combined opponents, we are winning on clearances, contested possessions and inside 50s per game, which is a really good result and a testament to the work guys like Brayshaw, Cerra and Serong have put in.
We are getting beaten a little on the outside - relative to our opponents, we are in the bottom four for uncontested possessions and meters gained - so there is a little bit of tidying up to do there. We’re only 12th for contested marks, and that should be a strength for us, so I’d expect that stat to turn around with availability.
The real issue remains scoring. Only the Kangas have scored fewer goals. Obviously we’re still short-handed in the forward line, but I think once we get something close to resembling a complete forward line JLo needs to loosen the reigns a little. Given teams are quicker on the outside and our defence is undermanned I get why we’re turning games into a slugfest, but good teams need to be able to score quickly when they get on top, and we haven’t shown any ability to put the foot down when we have momentum.
There’s a good chance we win the next two, setting up a huge back-to-back games with West Coast and Brisbane, in which we play three consecutive games in Perth. I know crowd numbers and the atmosphere is a bit down, but it wouldn’t take much for the wagon to start rumbling.
Get on now, I reckon.