BILL'S GRILL – ROUND 9

IT IS a really exciting time at the moment with us going into the bye at 5-2 which was a lot better than 4-3 obviously. We've had the chance to sit down and watch the State Game, and Perth beat Subi on the weekend and now we get ready to take them on.

Our form has been good all year even though we lost to Claremont at Claremont after being in the game for a long period before they got some goals in the last 10 minutes or so to kick away, and against Swans we butchered the ball.

We went inside forward 50 a lot more than them and had a lot more scoring shots up to about the 20-minute mark of the last quarter so it was a game we could have put to bed a lot earlier. That came back to bite us on the backside and no loss is a good loss even though as coaches we might flower it up as an honourable loss, but those two games we could have easily won had we executed a little bit better at important stages.

So after those two games, it was great to go down to Shark Park and come away with the win. I think anyone who was down there would have been really impressed by the game that was put on by both sides. The conditions were fantastic, but with one side kicking 21.3 and the other 24.8 that's some really good kicking on goals and it probably hasn’t been East Fremantle or our strength over the last couple of years.

There was lots of fast-paced, up and down style footy which would have been great to watch. I'm not sure it was great for me to watch in the coaches' box but one of the reasons East Fremantle kicked so well on goal was the ease we allowed them into the forward 50. That is a concern for us, but we really focused on going down there and coming away with a win. Last time we were there we lost by over 100 points and whilst our side has evolved a little bit, we had a lot of the same players.

Having three weeks in between games is far from ideal but we worked on the fact of going fairly light in the week after the East Fremantle game. We did have five guys in the State squad and another four or five who played in the rising stars game the night before the State Game so we were a bit light on in numbers that week anyway. On that Tuesday night our players went out to do some junior clinics and then we gave them from Thursday night until Tuesday the next week off to give them the chance to do things that they don't usually get to do during the season to take a bit of a break.

A lot of our boys like surfing and golf so it gave them the chance to do that and unwind over the weekend. They still had a running program and we expected them to look after themselves, but we wanted to refresh them mentally and physically. Then we trained Tuesday and Thursday like normal the next week, and we had a run on the Saturday morning.

It was a session designed to get them back into game mode. There was a fair bit of intensity, a bit of match-play and some physical nature to the competition to get them back into the routine that Saturday is game day. We tried to load it up a bit so we could have a normal week's training leading into the Perth game where on Monday we do weights, running and a little bit of skills, and then have our main sessions on Tuesday and Thursday.

It was important to make the Saturday somewhat like match day so it looks like we haven’t had a full two weeks break, but it was just as important to let them recharge for a week. They have worked hard since October and had four or five really difficult games in a row. It's been a hard slog and we've got a lot of young players. We took a breather for a week and now we are back into it working hard to prepare for Perth. They are playing some great footy and we expect it to be a tough game.

Even though there has been a bit of turnover on the Perth list, I don’t think it's been a talent issue at Perth for a number of years. I'm not on the inside of the club so I'm not going to comment directly on any culture issues they might have had, but people at the club have openly said they have tried to change the culture. Having people like Paul Bevan around who has been part of the successful Sydney era would help that and it drifts down the entire playing squad.

They have assembled a good list, they are playing an exciting brand of footy and get up the ground, and run back hard and defend hard. Talent-wise they have enough of that to be a strong team and it's now a fact that Marty Atkins is having an impact as CEO and the coach Damien McMahon has upped his expectations on the playing group. It just goes to show that if you have strong beliefs within the group and standards that you demand are met then you get your reward. They should be commended on what they have done so far.

Our captain Jason will play some footy this week against Perth, we will just wait and see whether or not that's in the reserves or back into the league side. It was good to see Steve Potente get through the reserves game against East Freo as well. He was tearing the track up in the pre-season and would have played Round 1 before he got hurt. He offers us something different. There isn’t much of him, but he's a left-footer and is sharp around the contest.

Joe Morrow should be back as well and then there's a string of guys playing some really good footy in twos. James Embley, James Batterham, Mitch McPhee, Frank Stockley and Matt Fowler are in good form so we think that we have got some depth to cover. How much we can cover at any one time we don’t know, but things have been going all right on the injury front so far. We've had three or four out and most of them should be available by the time May 25 comes around in one of the two grades.

BY BILL MONAGHAN