He was a bit annoyed with our defenders because they kept letting in easy goals from kicks that went over the back of the pack of players.
What we were concerned about was that when St Kilda did win the footy, our defenders didn’t have the required effort and intensity to get back and protect that goal side space.
They were cheap, easy goals that, if we had more diligence and better positioning, we could have stopped. And they scored seven of their 15 goals that way, so if you want to ask where we lost the game, that goes a long way.
And that was why we were so disappointed about losing that game by eight points, because there were so many easy goals we gave St Kilda.
So, as a coaching group, we’ve gone over the vision with the players and spoken at length about it. We think some of them had the wrong mindset that night, and that didn’t allow them to read the flight of the football as well as they should.
Our players probably got a bit too man-conscious, which got their eye off watching the footy and stopped them from getting back to protect that space near goals and cover for a team-mate.
First game of the season, I think everyone just went into their shells a bit instead of relaxing and thinking more of the team defence. The players knew they were getting easy goals and were trying to fix it on the ground, but just couldn’t do it.
But there were positive signs too. Heath Grundy played well on Nick Riewoldt, and kept him to only six marks, and Nick Malceski played a great game. It’s great to see that Nick has carried on his pre-season form and will be a good asset to the team.
It’s frustrating for everyone after a game like last week’s. Everyone goes away thinking about the could-haves, the would-haves, the should-haves. You do lose sleep over the bad games, especially when you go home and watch it all over again on replay and see how easy those goals were.
Clearly the defence needs to improve this weekend against Adelaide. We’ve put our hand up and taken responsibility as a group, so you’ll see a much better performance from them this Sunday!
