Royals winning but with plenty of improvement leftThursday, April 3, 2014 - 2:37 PM - by Chris Pike

EAST Perth coach Brian Dawson feels his team has plenty of improvement in it, but isn’t complaining after two wins to start the 2014 WAFL season with two key midfielders Brendan Lee and Garry Moss a chance to return within the next month.

The Royals have started the 2014 campaign with a 19-point win over Peel Thunder at Mandurah's Bendigo Bank Stadium and then a come from behind 18-point triumph over Swan Districts at Leederville's Medibank Stadium last Saturday.

East Perth will now look to remain unbeaten this Friday night taking on South Fremantle, and former Royals big man Brock Higgins, at Fremantle Oval in a game pitting one of the WAFL's unbeaten sides against a winless one.

While Dawson certainly feels that East Perth can play better than it has over the first two weeks, particularly in using the ball inside the forward 50 and putting more goals on the board, it's hard to complain too much when you are winning.

"We have been pleased to get over the line in our two games so far, but they have been pretty hard slogging games and there hasn’t been anything terribly pretty about it," Dawson said.

"We are still pleased to get over the line, but we've had to work pretty hard for it."

Two players who have had terrific starts to the season are creative defenders Adam Carter and Nathan Blee.

Carter is in his second season with West Coast so is now playing for East Perth despite previously having played in two colts premierships and in 13 league matches for South Fremantle.

It will be a strange feeling for him on Friday night surely playing against South Fremantle in an East Perth jumper, but he is in terrific form after 55 possessions the first two games as creative defender.

Blee has also returned to East Perth this season after two years with Port Adelaide and while before he left he was a lockdown defender, the player who has returned is now a ball winner and Dawson has enjoyed using him further up the ground than he might have initially thought he would.

"Adam has been good. He has knocked up getting the footy playing in defence and he's had plenty of opportunities to rebound the ball for us from the back half, and his defensive work has been very good. He has started the season well and certainly we hope that can continue on Friday night," he said.

"Nathan has had a good start the year. He has come back to East Perth so he knows a lot of the boys pretty well, and he has come back with a positive attitude and he's enjoying his footy.

"That has been reflected in his play and he has been one of our most consistent performers over the first two weeks of the season playing a bit of midfield, wing and half-back. He has certainly been a strong contributor for us."

As for the much talked about East Perth partnership with West Coast, Dawson says it is working well and sees no reason why that won't continue.

"A lot has been said about the partnership and from our standpoint it is working very well at the moment," he said.

"The West Coast players who have come in have been really positive and enjoyed their footy with us, and the boys at East Perth have certainly embraced them and enjoyed having them around the footy club. So far, it has been very positive and we don't see any reason why that won't continue."

Meanwhile, two players who will be virtual recruits midway through the season for the Royals will be co-captain Lee and classy left-footer Moss.

Moss is returning from a knee reconstruction last year and will be back playing at least in the reserves in the coming weeks while Lee could now be less than a month away from returning from a badly broken finger suffered in the pre-season.

"It looked like it was just a broken finger when he first did it and that it would just be a few weeks that he would be out, but it turned out to be a badly broken finger and required surgery to insert a pin into it," Dawson said.

"The prognosis at the moment from the operation that it's going to be somewhere in the region of eight to 10 weeks so we aren’t exactly sure when Brendan will be able to get back for us.

"He is probably three or four weeks into that period so we are hopeful that we will get him back in three or four weeks time, but we will be guided on the medical advice on that."