After being competitive in most games this year, the Lions Reserves suffered a 150-point trashing at the hands of the Sydney Swans, which was enough to secure them an unwanted wooden spoon in the inaugural season of the NEAFL.
“There’s not a whole lot I can say,” a clearly dejected Clarke said
“It was very disappointing and it’s hard to find any positives out of it. My review wasn’t very nice.”
“It was almost as though the boys had one last ditch effort against the Gold Coast SUNS last week and forgot there was still one more game to go.”
“We were left with a real roller-coaster of emotions. The boys unfortunately don’t get another opportunity to redeem themselves this year, but at the same time it’s been a long year and I sensed a bit of relief.”
“We played 10 listed players plus Richard Newell and Don Barry. Amon Buchanan pulled out late and Brad Harvey had concussion, while we also lost Richy from the week before,” he said.
“But we were seriously out of our depth.”
“Sydney has a really good system with how they promote Scholarship players to their Reserves side and they’ve also got some really good top-age Academy boys running around as top-ups.”
When required to list his six best players after the game, Clarke could only find space for three.
“I only listed three best players and two of them were top-ups,” he said.
“Callum Carseldine was one top-up who played okay at times on Jarrad Moore. Moore was named Sydney’s best, but Callum did a good enough job in restricting his influence when he moved forward.”
“Josh Green was okay. He kicked a couple goals and at least fought out the game.”
“I’d be lying if I said there were any other guys in our ‘best’.”
The match did provide an opportunity for International Scholarship player Brendan Beno to represent the Lions for the first time and Clarke believed he showed some potential.
“He was lively,” Clarke said.
“Brendan’s only 17 and is still very light framed. With the amount of numbers Sydney were getting to the contest, it was very tough for a kid like that to get involved - particularly when you’re getting beaten by so much.”
“He had out first shot on goal and showed enough to think he might have a bit to offer. He’s a good young and enthusiastic kid and was just rapt to be part of it.”
Now that the season is officially over for the Lions Reserves, Clarke says it’s important that the players continue training hard with the senior team don’t become too complacent.
“All they can do is push for spots by training their butts off. That last game will hang over their heads for the next 6-8 months, so they should learn from that,” he said.
“The players are realistic enough to know that careers can be made or lost during this time.”
