West Perth focus on finding more avenues to goal in 2015Thursday, March 19, 2015 - 4:34 PM - by Chris Pike

WEST Perth coach Bill Monaghan realised the Falcons didn’t kick enough goals in 2014 and he is confident that will change in 2015 with a good mix of talls and smalls in the forward-line for his team to try and do just that.

With a combination of Nick Rodda, Marcus Adams, Michael Lourey, Max Alexander and Shayne Zanetti providing tall options, Matt Fowler, Matt Johnson, Luke Meadows and Kody Manning as mid-size options and then Corey Chalmers, Chris Franklin, Steve Potente, Marc Crisp and Brayden Antonio as small forwards, that looks to be a forward-line capable of plenty of goals in 2015.

West Perth was able to finish the 2014 WAFL season with a strong percentage of 112.43 to have the third strongest in the league behind only grand finalists East Perth and Subiaco, but that was largely because of the Falcons' defence.

West Perth only conceded 72 points a game in 2014 and that had them only narrowly behind East Perth to be rated best for points conceded, but it was a different story up the other end of the ground with the Falcons averaging just 81 points a game.

That had them better offensively than only the fifth place Claremont second last placed Peel Thunder while even wooden spooners Perth managed to score more than them throughout the year.

Then the Falcons also lost six-time leading goalkicker Anthony Tsalikis to retirement following the 2014 season, but Monaghan has good reason to expect his team to be capable of compiling some much bigger scores throughout 2015.

Backing up Monaghan's faith in his playing group that more goals will come their way in 2015 is the fact that the forward-line will have a good blend of talls, mid-sized players and small forwards.

Before his season was ended early through injury after Round 16, premiership big man Nick Rodda was in career-best form kicking 19 goals in his last eight games including a career-best five against South Fremantle in Round 14 at Fremantle Oval.

Another premiership forward Matt Fowler was restricted to just six matches for eight goals in 2014 in the league team, but he has kicked 28 goals in 48 games for the Falcons. If he can stay healthy there is no reason he can't end 2015 right in the running for the Bernie Naylor Medal.

The 23-year-old Queenslander already kicked five goals in a 30-minute burst in last Saturday's pre-season win over Swan Districts so enters his fourth season with West Perth in good form.

Then there is Marcus Adams who showed great signs in his first season with West Perth last year kicking 19 goals from 19 games, but there is every reason to suggest the 21-year-old can hit the scoreboard more in 2015.

Lourey arrives at West Perth fresh off having kicked 141 goals in 70 VFL matches with both Sandringham and Frankston while Zanetti is virtually like a new recruit and if he can stay fit, will be a valuable asset both in attack and helping Chris Keunen in the ruck.

Max Alexander and possibly Tyler Keitel will be able to help Rodda, Adams, Lourey and Zanetti in providing tall options as well while Antonio, Chalmers, Manning, Crisp, Franklin, Meadows and Potente are among the players who will try to benefit from their work in creating contests.

Monaghan is confident that West Perth's defence will be just as strong in 2015 as last year but the improvement needs to come in the forward-line, and he's confident it will.

"One thing that we were very strong at last year was our defence and we ended up being only 10 points worse off than East Perth so for a side that only won nine of 20 games that was a good result. However, our biggest problem was scoring and that was a combination of personnel and our ball movement," Monaghan said.

"We've focused a little bit more on our ball movement and we've been throwing a lot more ball-decision making at the players with ball in hand. We are hoping in the pre-season we get a better balance between attack and defence.

"We will still value our defence highly and whilst last year we couldn’t score that well, we still had the third best percentage. We just need to see an improvement on our offensive side while making sure we are working hard defensively still."

The other pleasing aspect of West Perth's preparations for the 2015 season is the fact that the player turnover has been kept to a minimum.

There were the retirements of Tsalikis and Dan Hunt last year and then premiership big man Shaun Marusic moved on as well, but the majority of the squad is back again and ready to fire in 2015.

"The turnover hasn’t been great this year and we do obviously lose a couple of players who played a lot of games, but the club moves on and we find other players to fill that void," he said.

"With Marcus Adams, Nick Rodda and adding Michael Lourey into the mix we think that in terms of key position players both forward and back we have got a strong group going forward.

"Shayne Zanetti finished off last season well, Max Alexander has been outstanding through the pre-season, we are trying Tim Sutherland as a key back and we think that we will be able to cover the losses of Dan and Slick.

"We are hoping that Johnson, Batterham, Shannon, Meadows and those guys can help fill the void left by Slick in the forward-line and Matt Fowler is still here and Drew Rohde had an outstanding pre-season. Our list is at an age where we will continue to improve and a lot of our better players are at the younger end, so we think we are well placed to sustain our list for years to come."

Not only have West Perth kept the majority of its squad together, but former Port Adelaide AFL defender Michael Pettigrew returns after missing 2014 and he is fresh off a successful season in the Northern Territory Football League.

"Michael's an interesting one. In his first year back out of the AFL he probably struggled a bit and that's not unusual for the AFL players after having a really structured environment, and not having to work normal hours and juggle football with it," Monaghan said.

"He wasn’t great in that first year for us and then in the second year, he really stepped it up with his leadership and commitment, but unfortunately he got injured late in the year and missed the opportunity to play in a premiership.

"He has gone away for 12 months, set himself up with work off the field, played good football up in Darwin and made the Northern Territory Team of the Year, so he comes back refreshed and he is still young enough and keen enough to play well.

"He is motivated by the fact that he missed an opportunity a couple of years ago and he wants to add to that in his career, so we are rapt to have Michael back and he brings a lot to the table."

The Falcons have also added Callum Papertalk, Chris Franklin, Hayden yarran, Chris Yarran, Brent Fotheringham and Lourey to top off their list for 2015.