OUTGOING co-coach Graeme Twaddle says the North Warrnambool Eagles are a club heading in the right direction.
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Despite a significant turnover of players from the group which made last year’s grand final, the Eagles ensured they were again a finals contender, before bowing out in Sunday’s elimination final against Cobden.
Twaddle, who has shared coaching duties at the Eagles for the past three seasons, acknowledged the development of the playing list after the season-ending loss.
“I think we’ve worked out about 43 different players have played with the senior side this year and 11 of those have been under 18.5s,” he said.
“The direction the club is going in is really positive; it’s just a matter of keeping all these young blokes together and keeping them going with their development.”
On Sunday, the Eagles broke even with the Bombers in the first half, and worked well defensively against a strong breeze for the first half of the third quarter, before things started to unravel in what ended up being a 63-point loss.
“We probably just didn’t play to instruction quite well enough,” Twaddle said.
“A couple of times we were our own worst enemy, bringing the ball onto this top side and sort of cost.
“We just didn’t bottle it up quite enough halfway through that third quarter and we bled a few goals.”
The Standard understands the Eagles are in discussions with current co-coach Rory Taggert, but a decision is yet to be made on what direction its senior coaching will take.