BILL'S GRILL – ROUND 7

IT IS a big game for us this Saturday against East Fremantle at East Fremantle Oval with huge ramifications. We lost a game last week against a side who we are fighting for a final four position with and this week is no different.

We are both at 4-2 and it's a huge difference from being 5-2 or 4-3. We have to sit back and then watch another round of footy after the state with the bye and we could potentially overtaken by a couple of teams. If we don’t win this week, I would expect that by the time we play again we could be out of the four depending on other results.

Going back to our loss to Swan Districts on Anzac Day, our kicking was terrible all day both at goals and across the field. We kicked the ball poorly at times going in the forward 50 as well.

The game was in the balance at three quarter-time and I felt we had controlled large parts of the game. The patterns were fairly clear that we seemed to be doing a pretty good job in the first 15 minutes of the quarters and then they would chime in and kick a couple to even it up again. We were confident that we would run the game out and we probably had the first five or six of the first seven scoring shots of the last quarter and kicked 1.6 for the quarter.

If we took our opportunities we could have skipped out to a three or four-goal lead and you just don’t know what happens from there, but Swans kicked a couple of quick goals midway through the quarter and then our last 10 minutes was really disappointing. They kicked five goals in the last 15 minutes of the game to take us from being in front to a 28-point loss. We finished with 54 inside 50s to 44 for the game and I'm guessing that seeing as they kicked the last five goals, it was probably something like 53 to 37 at one stage so we had a significant differential there.

To not take advantage of that was not a good reward for our effort and in the end it took its toll. We are disappointed with the last 10 minutes in terms of our effort, but it probably didn’t deserve to be a 28-point ball game. I thought it was a pretty good game across the board. Both sides threw a lot at each other and it was fast-paced and entertaining. It was just disappointing that we went down in the end.

Matt Johnson was basically out of commission for us about 10 minutes into the game and whilst he came on for three or four bursts of a couple of minutes, he did that purely to give someone a rest. From about the 10-minute mark to half-time he didn’t go on at all and then played 10 or 15 minutes in total. Rasmussen went off for a little bit as well and those things don't help, but it's not like the old days where if you lost two you were down to 17 or 18 fit men. We have still been down to 19 or 20 men the last two weeks and whether that takes a toll two weeks in-a-row who knows, but it's not an excuse. It happened and we just need to deal with it. We don’t think that cost us the game. What cost us the game was not taking our opportunities to get further in front and then Swans went forward and kicked a lot better on goal.

Now looking to this Saturday, Petters should be back. He's been away with work and he gets back on Thursday. He has been up training with a side in Karratha and doing a running program. He is on a modified program anyway because of his knee issues so we don’t think that is a huge issue for him to be away for about a week and-a-half. We've known for ages he would have to go away for work and we planned his program accordingly. He should be back this week. Rasmussen just had a hyper-extension of his elbow so he should get up and Johnson being a cork with a nine-day break I will be really surprised if he doesn’t play.

As for our team this week against East Fremantle, we are still waiting to hear on Hutchy if he is playing or not. He would have to at least be in consideration at West Coast and then we have a few others we will look at. James Embley has been in good form, Mitch McPhee has been playing well in the twos and so has Batterham. Trent Manzone has played some good footy and was unlucky to be squeezed out last week so we think we have three or four blokes we can bring in if required. At this stage we don’t think there'll be wholesale changes. There might be a couple or possibly a third if we don’t have Hutchy.

BY BILL MONAGHAN