In this week's Vero Coaches Wrap, Assistant Coach Murray Davis dissects the loss to the Sydney Swans.
Lions.com.au covers the main points below.
Our Fast Start
“It was disappointing to not get the result, but we were really happy with the effort.
“We started the game really well kicking 13 points to Sydney’s 0.0. Our goal kicking has improved which was really impressive but just the passion and enthusiasm that the players played with really set the trend for the whole day.”
Red time goals
“Last week we touched on it – the Western Bulldogs kicked three goals in 2 minutes and it was a similar story this week with the Sydney Swans kicking three goals in 2 minutes again. It is a work in progress for us, we’re aware of it, we’re putting plans in place to make sure we’re a bit better in this area.”
Tackling
“It was a really high tackling game. You’ll see there we have one less tackle than the Sydney Swans. Ineffective tackles we were actually plus 2. We go through this with our players week by week and we go through some of the reasons as to why. We do a lot of work on tackling, we did a lot through pre-season and throughout the week and we have ‘Bumper’ (Brett O’Farrell) who specialises in tackling come in to help out. We create all different types of scenarios for the players to work through.
“Ben Keays had 8 tackles, Pearce Hanley had 11 tackles – 98 tackles for the game is a really high number – mainly due to the conditions. Ryan Harwood (6 tackles) as a defender was terrific. Defensively we want to be hard to play against and we thought on the day the boys did a great job in this area. Rohan Bewick (9 tackles) and Dayne Zorko (7 tackles) were also good.
“We’ll continue to hopefully apply that pressure to the opposition each week that allows us to generate our offense on the back of what we do defensively.”
Daniel Rich
“Daniel Rich worked pretty hard on Luke Parker who is a very good player for the Sydney Swans. Rich’s ability to be able to go from defence into offence and kick a very important goal for us was vital.”
On the Road
“We were all really happy with the effort but we didn’t get the result. It’s now important to take that effort on the road. We’ve actually played four of the top teams on the ladder as it stands. West Coast (Rd1) are in sixth position at the moment. We’ve got Port Adelaide this weekend and we’re looking forward to it. Hopefully we can take that effort on the road.”
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