That’s more like it!
It was a really brave effort by the boys to get the four points with three players injured and just one on the bench late in the game. It wasn’t the prettiest spectacle I’ve played in and things didn’t go exactly to plan, but a win like that builds your culture.
‘It’s funny how a win changes the mood of the group on a Monday morning. You certainly pull up a bit better and there’s a feeling of satisfaction.’
We didn’t play well at all in the first half but when you’re having a bad day, you need to make sure you don’t have a REALLY bad day and we did that. I thought we were in a pretty tough position going into the second half, but we just needed to get things back on our terms and changing a few things structurally made a difference.
Mark Blicavs provided us with balance when he went into the midfield and gave us a great contest, while our half forward line provided plenty of run. Footy is a pretty simple game sometimes and once we started to use the ball a bit better and put more pressure on the Suns, things turned in our favour.
Once we got the ball rolling it was pretty contagious.
It’s extremely pleasing that we were still able to get the win despite the experience we lost from the forward line, midfield (Stokesy/Jimmy) & defence (Tom).
Guys like Corey Gregson stood up when it mattered and to see him kick that goal in the final term under serious pressure was pleasing – that’s when the good players stand up.
It’s funny how a win changes the mood of the group on a Monday morning. You certainly pull up a bit better and there’s a feeling of satisfaction. But from today we look forward and start preparing for the next challenge.
Go Cats!
This piece was originally published on Joel Selwood’s blog, which can be accessed here.