THERE were stages on the weekend where we played well and scored, but at other times we didn’t, which shows we still have some improvement and our players will keep learning from each game.
Each week we have different players who step up for us and we have a good spread of solid contributors.
The club was happy to see Cyril Rioli get nominated for the Rising Star Award.
He had another pleasing game. He’s a player who has a lot of enthusiasm and just loves playing footy. In addition to kicking that goal in the third quarter he helped set up a number of goal scoring opportunities which was really pleasing from our point of view.
We have a couple of goal kicking sessions each week and practice a number of shots, he’s not going to kick them all the time but he does practice those so it was just reward.
While Buddy may have only kicked one goal, the pleasing thing from our perspective is that he tackled, chased and presented well. He put himself in a position to kick goals but it just wasn’t his day to get them on the scoreboard.
As for Jarryd kicking five, he has worked had over the last couple of weeks and I think it was a good reward for him. The shots on goal are being shared around at the moment and we are getting a really even contribution.
As for this week, Stuart Dew is available and is possibility to come back into the team so it’s a difficult selection situation and one we haven’t been faced with yet.
We’ve just got to, based on the opposition, see which structure is going to be the best, so it will be a week to week proposition.
Playing the Pies this week will be a huge challenge. It’s a Saturday afternoon so hopefully the weather’s fine and there’ll be 60,000 plus people there so it’ll be a great atmosphere.
It’s a Hawthorn home game so hopefully there will be great support for the team.