BILL'S GRILL – ROUND 23

WE MADE five changes after the Perth game leading into East Fremantle, and four of those will play this week against Swan Districts. Luke Tedesco will be the only one who won't and I expect Chris Keunen, Andrew Strijk, Matt Guadagnin and Kris Shannon to all play.

Jay van Berlo will play as well at some level this week whether we choose to play him in the league side or the reserves is something we will determine before the game. He is really confident that his knee will hold up and that does present a dilemma for us. Do we try to ease him back through a game that isn’t as high intensity or do we throw him in there to make sure he's sharp enough for the final the week after. At the end of the day, if his knee is right then it's right and that will most likely mean that after three or four weeks off he should come back through the seniors.

VB has left no stone unturned in his recovery and the same is for Luke Tedesco and Michael Pettigrew before he had to go up north for a trip with work. They are doing everything they can to give themselves a chance to play, but the one we can't do anything about is Anthony Tsalikis after he ripped a ligament off his shoulder, and he has had a shoulder reconstruction. That is not only really disappointing for him personally, but he has been crucial for our structure this year.

Any long-term injury is devastating and the fact that the team has been playing so well with him such a big part of that, and knowing he is closer to the end of his career than the start, he must have a whole range of emotions going through his head. We will let the dust settle on that and we have indicated to 'Slick' that we think he should continue and his form has been outstanding this year, and it has been as good football as he has played in my five years here which is a great credit to him and his work rate, and preparation. We will talk to him at the appropriate time and he will make a decision that's in his best interests and we hope he plays on, but we would also be comfortable that if it's the end it's the end, and he has had a great career.

The obvious player to help pick up some of that slack would be Matt Johnson who has good speed and marking ability as well so he is a similar type. Whether his work rate is as high as 'Slick's' as an 18-year-old then it probably isn’t, but the other problem is that he hasn’t been playing. He should play this week, though, and he is as close to a like to like player as we have for 'Slick'. But with Jason Salecic, Marc Crisp and Josh Mellington we think we have other options across half-forward but replacing a five-time leading goalkicker isn’t easy.

We can even throw in Kris Shannon with his speed and ability to present up, and it gives a really good opportunity for Shaun Marusic and Matt Fowler to really stand up and provide real focal points in attack for us. We have been working all year on our forward-line spreading the load and this is just another week where this will be the same message.

Our last game against East Fremantle was a really strange one. At one stage, we had gone in our forward 50 14 times to their four in the first quarter, and we were up and about with good forward pressure. Had we taken our opportunities, we could have kicked six or seven in the first quarter but then the second quarter wasn’t quite as good. We still were only one point down at half-time but things hadn’t gone our way with personnel going into the game and then we lost 'Slick', and it was just a completely different game. Our effort, intent and ability to defend all went missing and it's a really difficult thing to put a finger on how you can do it well for the best part of a half, and then basically not turn up after half-time.

We haven’t glossed over that result but having said that, we haven’t spent huge amounts of time trying to work out why it happened against East Fremantle other than the general feeling that our pressure was non-existent, our stoppages were poor after half-time, our respect for defence and tackling and chasing went out the window, and those are things we can't afford to let happen. There were some concerns in the second half, but we have been pretty good over the first 19 weeks.

We have probably only had a poor seven or eight quarters during the season. There were a couple of poor ones against South, a poor last quarter against Swans on Anzac Day, we were ordinary early against Subi before rectifying that and it has been limited a quarter here and there. Over the season, you've got to take that into account and given we've played 76 quarters so far, we have probably played 60 good ones, seven or eight middle of the road and another seven or eight bad ones.

We have to keep looking at the positives and the players are under no illusions about what makes us competitive and our better performances come when we get certain non-negotiables right, which went missing against East Fremantle and that's what we plan to rectify this weekend against Swans and then going into the finals.

There is a lot of talk about the experienced players in our squad and it's a real bonus for us, but given Pettigrew, Tedesco, van Berlo, Guadagnin, Strijk and Keunen were all missing against East Fremantle, and they all have great experience and talent what was probably evident was that we didn’t have enough leaders and showing the way. That's something we addressed and that's probably more important than anything else we did after that game.

We had a very young side and both Ben McNamara and Luke Meadows did a fantastic job and neither looked out of place even though the speed and intensity of the game caught up with them a bit in the second half. That is just something we need to deal with and we are going to get a fair chunk of that experience back.

A lot of things from an experience and structure point of view should right themselves this week against Swans and I'm sure the players are as eager as our supporters to put in a good performance.

It is important for our reserves to win on Saturday as well to make sure of a finals spot.

Our reserves have been fantastic after being 1-6 at one stage. They have won 10 of their last 12 games now and that's a credit to the whole club, but the reserves players and Paul Sanzone and his coaching group in particular. It has probably taken the reserves group a little longer to get their head around some of the changes we have made to the game style this year with our structures and defensive mechanisms.

It took them a little while to get there, and we had one of the oldest league sides but youngest reserves team, so there have been a lot of kids who have taken a while to pick up the pace of reserves footy and work together. We haven’t had a lot of mature bodies in our reserves either so they are doing a great job and hopefully they will tick off their last performance against Swans with a win seeing them finish in the four.

That will be great for our club. Whilst it's not everyone's main goal to win games and finals in the reserves, it can't be a bad thing to qualify for the finals and expose players to a step up in intensity that naturally comes in finals at any level.

Then there is the added bonus that it allows us to have the option of playing the two or three guys coming back from injury in the reserves before the league side. With all going to plan and if the reserves give the same performance they have given over a long period of time for the season they will get up and we will have two sides playing finals.

BY BILL MONAGHAN