The Coach Report: An Update from Earl Spalding

In a shortened season, every game is critical, but none more so than the fixture we face tomorrow against East Fremantle down at their home ground, where Perth victories have been as scarce as hen’s teeth in recent years.

In fact, we have to go back to 2009 to find our last win at this venue. What a challenge for our group.

Our first two games have resulted in narrow wins. We’ve played some okay football, but not consistently to the standard we’ll need to play at to achieve what we want to this year.

The good news is we’re still winning and we showed improvement from Round 1 to Round 2. I’d like to think we are building nicely and starting to gel as a group, especially when you consider we had 8 new faces from last year in the team that beat East Perth.

Three of these, Andrew Fisher, Brady Grey & Fraser McInnes, were late pick-ups from the West Coast Eagles when their reserves team was abandoned for the year. They have been outstanding, both on and off the field, with their experience and leadership being exactly what we needed (and expected) around a pretty exciting young crop of emerging talent.

The likes of Logan McDonald, Regan Clarke, Jacob Peletier, Simon Hayward, Connor Sing, Tarkyn Brogan-Henry & Brodie Gray can only benefit from their counsel.

Whilst we are reasonably healthy at the moment (touch wood), we will be missing the skipper for the rest of the season after he hurt his knee in an innocuous training mishap before the first game. It’s really disappointing for Yeoy, who was setting himself for a big season.

The other major out at the moment is Corey Byrne, who has been battling a viral illness. He’s due to commence light training in the coming weeks, so we wish him a speedy recovery as his silky skills would be a very welcome addition to the side.

See you at New Choice Homes Park tomorrow.