Spalding looks for Demons to continue impressive momentumSaturday, June 23, 2018 - 6:51 AM - by Chris Pike

IMPROVED confidence, health and belief are all factors in Perth now playing its best football in Earl Spalding's time as coach and he sees no reason now why they can't further close in on a top five position by ending a horror run against West Perth.

Perth hasn’t won a premiership in the WAFL since 1977 nor taken part in a final series since 1997, and really they haven’t seriously threatened to accomplish either for a long time, including since Spalding took over as coach in 2015 from Damien McMahon.

It has been tough going the previous three years and something Spalding certainly hadn’t been used to after his playing career both in the WAFL at Perth and East Fremantle, and VFL/AFL with Melbourne and Carlton.

He played 306 games across the WAFL, VFL and AFL winning two premierships along the way and then began his coaching journey at East Fremantle in 2001 before taking the Sharks to the finals in 2002.

Spalding spent the next seven years as an assistant coach at Fremantle, along with a stint assisting at Swan Districts too in 2004 and 2005. 

After his time with the Dockers ended, he successfully coached Wesley-Curtin taking them to a B-Grade premiership in 2012, A-Grade flag in 2013 and another grand final appearance in 2014 leading into his appointment as coach of the Demons.

He always knew it was going to be a long-term process to turn things around, but even he didn’t realise just how big a job it would be and over the past three years winning just 12 of 60 games, and taking out two wooden spoons was far from what he was hoping for.

But Spalding remained buoyant that with better luck on the injury front and continued development of his young group, and better retention of players that things could still turnaround and now he is seeing the evidence of that.

Perth did lose four of its first five games again of 2018, but things began to turn with a stirring come from behind one-point win against Claremont in Round 7 at Claremont Oval.

The Demons backed that up with a strong showing against the rampant Subiaco only trailing by two points early in the last quarter before ultimately losing by 40. Perth then put Swan Districts to the sword the following week leading by 40 points midway through the second term.

However, they again couldn’t maintain the rage and ended up losing by 30 points suffering a 70-point turnaround. But not to be deterred, the Demons beat South Fremantle for the first time in Spalding's tenure as coach in Round 10 and followed up with a 64-point thumping of East Fremantle last Saturday at Lathlain Park.

That all has the Demons now knocking on the door of the top five with a 4-6 record ahead of a clash with the Falcons this Saturday at Joondalup Arena.

That's a West Perth team that Spalding is yet to beat in his tenure as Perth coach. The Demons have lost their last 14 matches against the Falcons by an average of 44.6 points.

Perth's last win against West Perth was at Joondalup Arena, though, back in Round 18, 2011 and now Spalding is hoping the Demons can take another significant step forward with a win on Saturday.

But for them to take the next big stride forward, it's about more than that.

"I don't think we've beaten them for eight years, which is a bit of an indictment on the club. We haven’t won up there either for a hell of a long time so it's a big challenge for us, but I'd like to think we go in with a bit of confidence and momentum. We'll see what that looks like at the end of the day," Spalding told 91.3 SportFM.

"Our next step is that when momentum is going our way we have shown we are pretty exciting and can play a good brand of footy, but when it's not going our way is where we need to be able to sit on a game and take the gas out of it. At the moment we still want to go 100 miles an hour. 

"That's a bit of maturity and understanding with leadership from the senior guys to stand up and just kick the ball around, and take the tempo out of it. When we can get that right and also our consistency with our defensive structure, we'll be a really good side."

Perth's impressive past five weeks which included strong performances before fadeouts against Subiaco and Swan Districts, and the wins over Claremont, South Fremantle and East Fremantle has coincided with the return of key players and others emerging into quality league footballers.

Michael Sinclair, Devin McFarlane and Mitch Lague have been back to strengthen the back-line and provide quality and experience while Lachlan Dennis and Michael Bennell have impressed up forward.

Brant Colledge has been fully healthy and his form is the best now since returning to Perth from West Coast along with the strong form through the middle of experienced players Clint Jones, Cody Leggett and Corey Yeo.

The signs continue to be good for the Demons with Spencer White and Jared Bell playing reserves against East Fremantle, and Christian Eyres to return to lead the ruck against West Perth.

"Getting your better players on the park certainly helps and our injury list at the moment, touchwood, is going in the right direction," Spalding said.

"We still have a few to come back in, but apart from Spencer White, Brent Edmonds and Jared Bell who played his first reserves game in two years, they are the three main ones missing and Eyresy will come back in this week. 

"We are nearly at full strength which certainly helps, but the belief is building. That grew from some of our play earlier in the season which we didn’t necessarily convert into wins but we were around the mark. 

"So it's been building and we are still 4-6 and on the wrong side of the ledger, but there is a growing confidence around the group."

What Spalding has been trying to instil into his group over the past three years is for them to take responsibility for their performances on the field, good and bad. 

It's been a long process to get them to buy into that, but he has seen that more than ever in recent times and he feels it's made a significant difference.

"The biggest thing was that individually guys were acknowledging where they deviated. That has been a bit of an issue in the past with guys not wanting to acknowledge that it might have been their fault," he said.

"That is a sign of growing maturity within the group and I keep saying that we're not kids anymore, we don't have that excuse and we are young men. We are still inexperienced to a certain extent, but we are getting more and more experienced and that all bodes well too."

Finding goal scorers has continued to be a work in progress for Perth particularly with Spencer White and Sam Garstone not able to stay on the park to provide those tall targets they have been craving.

But against East Fremantle, seeing Michael Bennell and Cody Ninyette combine for 12 goals between them was remarkably exciting. Spalding certainly enjoyed watching that too, but knows that as long as they base their game on applying pressure, the rest will take care of itself.

"He and Cody Ninyette, Ninja as we know him, have got a bit more of a license than the other forwards to get up the ground and roam around. But they do weigh in heavily defensively as well and they are right up there in our tackle count," he said. 

"Magic, as he's become known and it might have been self-titled, won our one-percenter of the week for sticking a really strong tackle at half-back when the guy thought he could run over the top of him.

"He's not the biggest build but he is quite rangy and Cody is the same. He had four or five tackles and kicked five as well. We love them when they are kicking goals but that won't happen every week. But they can lay four or five tackles every week, that's within their control."

To say the past three and-a-half years have been tough for Spalding would be a great understatement, but he never shied away from his belief and responsibility to turn things around for Perth.

He wanted to be the man to do it and while it's led to some dark moments with the losses mounting, he felt that eventually things had to turn if they continued to do all the right things, and he hopes this impressive past five weeks is sustainable for the rest of 2018 and beyond.

"As a coach, you are basically diagnosed as bipolar because if you win you are up and if you lose, you are really down. I'm not trying to make light of any mental health issues, but it really does affect you from week to week because your livelihood can rest on how your players perform," Spalding said.

"Having a couple of weeks on the trot certainly helps you get up during the week and to plan for the next game. Last week against East Fremantle, we had a couple of guys getting a bit of close attention which is what happens if you are becoming a better team.

"It can help you too because you can manipulate the opposition to a certain extent. They are all challenges that are ahead of us and in the second quarter we lost our way a little after a bright start, which is another challenge we have to overcome to keep our process the same no matter how we're playing."