Trial Games

West V South Friday March 12th Hisense Arena
Reserves 5.15
League 7.30pm

West v Norwood Saturday March 20th Hisense Arena
Reserves 10am
League 1pm

West V North  Friday 26th March
Reserves 5pm
League 7.30pm

OK, where do you think we are placed?

I'm happy with our defence - Josh Ryan, Dunkin, Levicki, Hill & Co.

Our midfield should go from one of the thinnest to one of the best - Stevens, Lovell, Maguire, Boyle, Waite, Schiller, etc.

Ruck depends totally on Taverner, but he's well up to it.

Our forwards are a slight worry for height.  Isaac Johnson and Beech will be good, I think Keough will play CHF, Ellem's effectiveness will depend on his fitness, but I think we really lack a key tall.

Hopefully one or two of our lesser profile recruits might also step up.

A lot to look forward to.

It's hard to know how much improvement to expect. Will there be marked improvement by individuals, and as a team? Several of the recruits will obviously make us better. I expect and hope that we will be much more competitive but how many wins that translates to, and what other teams we can expect to finish above on the ladder is hard to gauge now. You'd like to think we'd get off the bottom though.

Lee,

I agree with you, our biggest issue will be our forward line. I think both Rana and McKenzie will be given opportunities and they will need to step up, Ellam needs help. I would play Murphy forward and through the midfield, he may have played in defence for Nth Melb, but our defence is ok.

Our Ruck division is very thin and Tavener who has played 2 League games is going to need to continue to step up. He has shown he was it takes, but he’s playing his first full League season. I like what I saw though last year.
Babic the young Ruckman we recruited is very young and raw and he is going to take a significant amount of time to develop. He’s a project player so we need to be patient.

We also need to improve our fitness and obviously the powers that be have recognised this. We have suffered far too many injuries and I think our fitness has been the worst in the comp for the past 3 years.

I think we should play Murphy back. Josh Ryan is our number 1 key defender with Levicki and maybe Hupfield as the second and third options.
I think Murphy will do more damage as a defender.
Keough, Beech, Isaac Johnson and Ellem are good enough to kick us a score. Karpany and Haysman as the crumbers.
I hope to see an improvement in our skills and faster more attacking football.

I think Josh Gore from the Suns will be exciting to watch and will play some league footy.

I'll be looking for a new game plan that involves kicking the ball towards the goals. Also, an improvement in skill levels but that could be hard to achieve in the short time the new coach has been at the club.

If anyone wants a bit of a footy fix, we have an under 21 side playing an under 23 St Peters OC side tonight (Friday 26th Feb) in a trial  starting around 7pm.

Team Lists for tomorrow night https://westadelaidefc.com.au/news/senior-mens-trial-team-selection/

Reserves win by nearly 5 goals

Well, it’s only a practice game but nonetheless it was a poor performance.
Let’s hope things improve from here .

It’s only the first trial so I will let the dust settle, Gore is a good small forward.

Yes. Gore was probably the standout. Thought our young ruckmen competed well. Stevens and Sinderberry showed promise. Sam May has filled out and continues to improve. Ed Allan was busy. Murphy looks to be a good pick up. We showed plenty of grit and endeavour. Maybe a slight improvement in skill levels.
South were bigger, faster, stronger and more skilful. They outmarked us all night. We can’t match up on one-grab players like Cross, Broadbent, Gibbs, etc.
We’re good at tackling and chasing but should be looking more to direct play rather than reacting. 6 goals in 100 minutes of footy not good enough but the classy Isaac Johnson blind turn out of a pack to goal at the southern end was the highlight of a pretty ordinary trial.

blackandred wrote: Maybe a slight improvement in skill levels.
South were bigger, faster, stronger and more skilful. They outmarked us all night.

Spot on Blackandred. It quite often took two tacklers to bring down the ball carrier. South's marking was nearly all one grab and they were very clean. Six goals is a poor return for 100 minutes of football. A poor trial in most aspects, however we need to acknowledge the following:

It was South's second trial
South played with great intensity and is a very good side
All our weaknesses were exposed which is better than performing better in a soft trial
Many players were playing together for the first time
We have ten players on the injury list (probably five would be in our best 21)
There was probably a slight improvement in the skills department despite the usual clangers (which South capitalised on)

Looking forward to next week's trial and hoping for an improved performance.

South are a very good side, there ball use and physical strength were superior to ours and so they should be considering they finished 3rd last year.

We are a work in progress with our ball use and forward line.

We started with McKenzie,Keough,Beech,Karpany,Gore and Johnson in our forward line. I think that will change for our next match against North.
McKenzie showed glimpses but he is more of a FP and not a FF.
And Keough is a better defender in my book

Gore did play well and Murphy used the ball well by foot, perhaps he could be tried in the midfield. Lovell,Beech and Maguire will get better.

I think young Rana,J.Stevens and Sinderberry all did some good things.


Cleeland,Levicki,K.Stevens,Haysman,Meline, Ellem, Dunkin and Tavener were either injured or playing ressies last night.

It’s only our first trial and we will improve.

Frankly, I do not place a big thing on results of a trial game --- Coaches play players in many positions and often leave players getting beaten in situ to see how they respond --- the real picture become clear in the final trail game but even then the first official game team can perform completely different.

I am very concerned about the injuries above mentioned (esp best 21 players) as i do not feel we have the depth to cope with this situation as has been proven in recent seasons.

My post was written before I seen Lachlans post and i agree with all he said

Very good and under rated point by Bruce that a team playing their first trial usually lose to a team playing their second trial.

Not enough League standard players in that side to get a different result.

Any tell me how Wilson and Wilson King went in the reserves?

With the coach's stated aim being to pick his best side for the last trial game next week, would you expect to see quite a few new faces tried at senior level this week at the expense of several who played last week?

Aldo

I would like to think so. Players such as Couroupis,Dunkin,Redfern,
Levicki,Schiller,Meline and Haysman that’s provided the last 4 have recovered from injury.

League Side for Saturday Babic, Karpany, Koster, Boyle, Maguire, Lovell, Haysman, Hill, Keough, Beech, Murphy, Allan, Batley, Duval, Gordon, Gore, Ryan, J. Stevens, McKenzie, Chamberlain, I. Johnson, Rana, Wilson-King, May

Nice to see a good win.  Look forward to a report.