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Tigers look to lift ahead of finalsFriday, August 2, 2013 - 1:36 AM - by Chris Pike
CLAREMONT coach Marc Webb is fully aware that his team hasn’t been playing its best for some time but in a way it's a good sign that the Tigers have still been winning as he now looks to get his team up to 100 per cent in the run into another finals campaign.
Claremont remains three games clear on top of the WAFL ladder after Round 19 and is heading for a fourth straight minor premiership but the form in recent times has not been setting the world on fire.
Since an emphatic 53-point win over Peel in Round 13, Claremont fought off East Fremantle and South Fremantle in successive weeks to win by three and four points respectively before going down at Claremont Oval to Swan Districts by 39 points.
There was then a Foxtel Cup semi-final loss to West Adelaide before the Tigers bounced back last Saturday with a 19-point win over the struggling Subiaco.
Webb knows his team needs to improve heading towards the finals and they will get some big tests along the way with matches to finish against East Perth, Swan Districts, Perth and East Fremantle.
"Our form has been fair. I reckon our training and intensity had dropped off a bit prior to this week, but I sensed we trained a lot better and we had more intent this week after the Foxtel Cup loss. To be fair too, you can't realistically go through a season and not have your ups and downs," Webb said.
"You listen to Alastair Clarkson and Ross Lyon, and they speak about the importance of being able to win ugly and not be in great form and still win. Certainly against East Freo and South Freo that was the case, and then Swans beat us quite easily so the challenge is to get our list back and getting our form back, and making sure that we are sitting where we want to be at the end of the year and in good form as well.
"There's no doubt the competition has certainly improved and there are no easy beats with the teams around the finals mark and that's who we play from now on, so we have to make sure our form is right now in the run home."
Given the conditions at Medibank Stadium in Leederville with the ground virtually covered in mud on Saturday it made it tough for Webb to take too much out of the 19-point win for his team, but the fact was that it was a win and his team had to fight hard to get it.
"It is tough to get much from it except for the fact that we got another game into a couple of the guys who have come back from injury and getting a game into guys in the ressies who have been injured as well," he said.
"We also got another game into our younger and inexperienced players. That was the main thing we took from it because it was tough in the conditions and with the way the game was played, and the way the ground was. The big thing was that our attitude and will to work hard was there too so I could take that out of it as well."
Claremont hasn’t been able to take a trick with injuries this season and again last Saturday key forward Anton Hamp went down with an ankle injury in the win in the mud over Subiaco.
However, the good news was that Trinity Handley and Aaron Holt both returned in the reserves and that even though Jeremy McGovern and Byron Schammer have been ruled out for the season, Andrew Browne, Holt, Handley, David Crawford and Alex Silvagni are still to come back in for the Tigers.
"Anton shouldn’t be too bad. It's a decent sprain and he is a chance still to play this week but he's no certainty to play. It's been one of the things that consistently has happened this year and I can't recall a game so far where we haven’t been one player down at least at any stage during the game," Webb said.
"It has been one of the great challenges and it seems we might get one or two back, and lose another couple. It has been a challenge for us this year and we've had it pretty consistently right the way through, and we hope from here we start to be able to get close to our best 22 back which we haven’t had for quite some time.
"With Trin Handley we can look to play him in a variety of roles and it has been one of those things where I have been really happy with our younger and mid-range type players who have come in and played a role, and hopefully in the next week or two we can get Holt and Handley in the team, get Browne in and keep the consistency in the team. Alex Silvagni will be a fair chance to play with us as well and Crawf will again be out this week but will be back after the bye as well."
While Claremont still awaits the return to the league side of Browne, Handley, Holt and Hamp with McGovern and Schammer not to be back at all, Sandover and Simpson Medal winner, and dual premiership star Luke Blackwell has returned with a vengeance the last two weeks.
"It's been great for him to come back and have a good impact. The greatest thing from my point of view now is that we probably relied on a few guys when Foster, Blackwell and Neates were out with Jake Murphy being the main one who carried the load and played a big role for us," he said.
One player who has taken advantage of more opportunities opening up in the midfield through departures and injuries has been Andrew Foster.
"Now we are getting our best midfield again and it is tough for sides to really focus their attention on one player so that has meant that Blacky has come back in, and the sides might have thought he wasn’t up to his usual standards straightaway so it's been good for him. Hopefully we can spread the load and make sure that guys like Foster, Neates and Murph continue to play good football."
The dual premiership half-forward has been a key player in Claremont's success since he came to the Tigers, but while with East Fremantle and in the AFL with Fremantle he was a prolific in-and-under midfielder with terrific hands in-close who was a strong clearance player.
Those talents hadn’t been needed so much since he joined Claremont, but with Kane Mitchell, Tom Swift and Rory Walton moving on, and Blackwell being injured for much of the season, Foster moved into the middle and it has paid off.
The 121-game veteran has averaged 24.6 possessions a game including a high of 33 disposals in Round 12 while also being one of the club's leading tacklers and clearance players. Webb has been delighted with what he's been able to do.
"Last year Fossy played a bit in the midfield and a bit forward, and I guess when you have guys like Kane Mitchell and Byron Schammer and Tom Swift in there as well we had the luxury of using him in other roles, but now he has really stepped into being one of our top two or three clearance and on-ball players," he said.
"It's been great that he has been able to come into the midfield so we can still spread the load. Up until he got injured, he was probably the prime midfielder in the competition. He has had an outstanding year for us even though it was interrupted a bit by injury, but his best form has been up there with the best of our players this year."
Veteran full-forward Chad Jones might not have kicked the big bag of goals he did earlier in his career with just the 28 majors for the season, with 14 of those coming in the last five matches, but Webb has been pleased with what the 125-game 28-year-old has been delivering.
The game has changed from when Jones was given plenty of space and could lead out, take a mark and kick bags of goals. Things aren’t as easy now, but he is putting on good defensive pressure, providing a contest and doing exactly what his coach asks of him.
"From a defensive position and pressure point of view, that has been like that for the majority of the year and his ability to control the forward-line with his leadership there has been good," Webb said.
"Over the last couple of weeks he has been lucky enough to kick a few more goals, but we look at different areas of his game than that and a lot of the times Chad's ability this year on being able to make a contest with opposition teams putting a loose man in front of him has been really good. He has been able to put that pressure on and bring the ball to ground and make a contest.
"I wasn’t disappointed at all in his early part of the year and he has been integral for us. The changing nature of the game is that the early days when he could get separation from his man in more open forward-lines and kicking bags of goals has meant that he's had to adapt, and he's done that. It's no longer about kicking his six's and seven's, but he is having an impact and controlling the forward-line. I've been really happy with his year."
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