THE most impressive aspect of Allansford’s first-up victory against Merrivale was those who masterminded the triumph believe there is more to come.
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Coach Josh Parkinson this week declared his men had much to improve on ahead of their assignment against reigning premier Panmure at Panmure today.
“I’ve looked at the video and reviewed that. We’ve got some good things out of it. The best thing was we’ve got a lot of improvement to come,” he said.
“For a round one game it was pretty high-paced. There were a lot of turnovers which was to do with pressure. We had 80 tackles and they had 79.
“They’re pretty high numbers for round one, free-flowing football, a warm day, dry footy. The defensive aspects of the way we played were pretty good.
“But as I said, we’ve got a lot of improvement to go at our stoppages and forward line delivery and general use of the ball.”
Parkinson was one of two coaches to name an unchanged side for the weekend, keeping faith with the 22 players who battled their way to a nine-point win.
He said taking on the Bulldogs was as much about showing what his side was capable of and earning respect as it was about claiming the four points.
“Certainly we want to test ourselves against the best. No doubt they’ll be the benchmark again this year,” Parkinson said.
“Last year we went there in about round four, we were in pretty good form and they gave us a bit of a hiding. We’re looking forward to heading out there and redeeming ourselves.”
An ankle injury to Matt Wheaton forced Panmure to make one change to its round one side, bringing in Dan Ryan.
Coach Simon O’Keefe said he walked away from the convincing win against Timboon Demons as pleased as he could be.
His new-look forward line, featuring Tom White, Alex White and Daniel Roache combined for nine of the 21 goals while Tommy Jones was a standout.
“I was happy, very happy with the way we played. We ran and linked up really well,” O’Keefe said.
“We’ve been doing that the last two years, each pre-season we’ve worked on it again. It definitely showed on Sunday.”