NORTH Warrnambool Eagles know improvement will be a long-term project for them this season after a 53-point loss to Port Fairy at Gardens Oval on Saturday, but they are using their conquerors as a beacon for hope.
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They were hurt by the Seagulls’ blistering start to the final term, with three goals in the opening four minutes giving the home team 39 points up and putting the game beyond the Eagles’ reach.
Eagles co-coach Graeme Twaddle said despite the wider football world earmarking the 2016 grand finalists to continue on with last year’s form, they were aware of the challenge before them with a new-look playing group.
“I think the expectation from the wider football world was, ‘These blokes were grand finalists last year and they’ll be similar to what they were last year’, but we’re not,” he said.
“We’re a completely different side and different make up, and that’s just the way it is so we’ve just got to nurture the group we’ve got.
“If it’s a close year, we’ll play our best footy at the back end of the season and hopefully we can make up a little bit of ground.
“Port Fairy have done that in the past quite well. I think was year they might have been one (win) and five (losses). We’re in a similar position to what they were, (and) we know there’s going to be improvement from our side.”
The Eagles had to play one short on Saturday after Jarryd Lewis (one goal) was cleaned up front-on, ending his day early.
Port Fairy had a rare clean bill of health, although returning trio Dan Nicholson, Xavier McCartney and Sam Rudolph were sore towards the end of the game.
“But in such a physical contest you’d expect most of our guys to be sore today, and they did well,” Seagulls coach Brett Evans said.
“Sam Rudolph fitted straight in and Xavier worked really hard down the forward line and ‘Nico’ kicked four goals and was good all over the ground.”
Both sides’ wastefulness in front of goal started early, with the teams combining for five goals from 15 scoring shots in what were near ideal conditions for football in the first term.
The accuracy didn’t improve as the game went on, with Port Fairy kicking 3.5 in each of the opening two terms, 1.7 in the third and 6.6 in the last as it went on to win 13.23 (101) to 6.12 (48).
“I think our forward line, even though we kicked 13.23, it seemed to work better than what it has been and I think the guys are just getting to understand each other a little bit down there, but it’s a negative too that we kicked 23 points,” Evans said.
“We are (creating opportunities) and we took 23 marks inside 50, which is a pretty high tally for marking.”