Werribee Tigers chase glory
Posted by Brent DiamondJul 1. 2012 9:22 am
THE Werribee Tigers are beginning to show signs that they will be tough to beat come September after pounding second-placed Casey by 78-points at Avalon Airport Oval yesterday.
Not only was the result emphatic and has the Tigers up and about, but they will be strong favourites to advance to the Foxtel Cup grand final when they travel to meet Morningside next week in the semi-final.
Tigers coach Scott West said the focus would be on winning, but also development of its young talent and draft prospects.
“There’s certainly an element of wanting to win but there’s certainly an element of development in being able to give guys an opportunity,” West said.
“We’ve been able to do that. We’ve been able to get Nathan Ablett into the team in the last Foxtel Cup game and his form has just progressively got better.”
He said the club aims to give games to showcase draft prospects but it doesn’t always happen.
“We didn’t play Rossy (Ben Ross) and (Kyle) Hartigan in our last Foxtel Cup match who I would’ve thought they would be well and truly (draft prospects). And that’s a tough one, you don’t want to deny them the opportunity to get in front of these guys but I think if there form’s good enough, they’ll be seen,” he said.
Werribee rebounded from last week’s disappointing loss to Bendigo in style. Certainly the Gold caught them by surprise last week. But West believes the true reflection of his team was to come the week after and that was yesterday’s s0lid win.
“You judge a group by how they react the next week and I just said that last week was one of those unfortunate days and you get a true reflection at where we’re at probably the next week,” he said.
“You’ve just got to keep taking it on. As soon as you go back into your shell, you play safe footy and you do at times have to play safe footy but when you can get the flow and the run and take the game on, sometimes it falls for you, it did today.”
“I got the feeling after the game (that the players wanted to respond). They were really disappointed in the performance and no one could really put a finger on why and what happened and all those sorts of things. We dealt with it on the Tuesday and moved on pretty quick,” he said.
West said he wanted his players to “take the game on” yesterday and they did with an onslaught of goals in the opening half to take a seven goal lead into the main break.
“We just didn’t have an attitude for the contest but there’s an element of work rate, there’s an element of wanting to do what is required to move the ball and as I said, taking the game on, it’s easy to kick down the line. But to take the game on and kick on an angle and kick on the fat side, it takes a bit of skill but obviously you have to back your team mates to get it there,” he said.
The Tigers were missing their skipper Robbie Castello, while draft prospect Will Martiniello copped an injury and is expected to be up to a month away from resuming.
“It’s not about who’s in and out of the team, it’s about the attitude of the players. And the foundation of how you want to go about it. I’ll acknowledge the fact that Casey weren’t at their best today because as in the strength of their squad but we went out there and played the way that we had to play and you can only play against who’s out there,” he said.
“He’s (Castello) fine, just a bit of soreness from last week. He was touch and go but we decided not to go with him because obviously if he pulls up sore in the first five or six minutes, some kids miss an opportunity to play so it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Werribee sits in third spot behind Port Melbourne and Casey.
Tags: Scott West, VFL, Werribee Tigers
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