General News
29 May, 2019
Power extends winning run
KOLORA Noorat has yet to play its best football this season despite extending their unbeaten start to the season with a strong win over Timboon Demons last Saturday.
KOLORA Noorat has yet to play its best football this season despite extending their unbeaten start to the season with a strong win over Timboon Demons last Saturday.
Coach Ben Walsh was in a reflective mood about his side’s progress following the 16.10 (116) to 6.4 (40) victory and said so far it had been “tricky” despite their winning run.
He said from week-to-week they were still yet to play consistent football to the level they desired, but were taking different learnings out of each game in a bid to fast-track its regularity.
“Each week we’re trying to focus on something different depending on who we play and the conditions,” he said.
“We’re trying to find different things to learn from and even though we’ve been winning, the challenge is to get a little bit better each week.
“We don’t think we’ve played our best footy yet and we didn’t play well last weekend but we still managed to win which was good.”
Although he conceded they had not played to its full potential, Walsh was pleased with several areas of their performances across the opening rounds.
He said the Power’s ability to stand up in important matches and the chance to continue to blood youth were two positives he was really happy with.
“We’ve had to get ourselves up for some really big games and we’ve been able to win them which has been really good,” he said.
“And we’ve also been able to play a heap of kids, I think we’ve had eight new ones play this year.
“That’s one area with the kids and guys stepping up into new roles that we’re really progressing in.”
Having won their first seven games, it’d be easy to say the Power could relax slightly with games against bottom sides East Warrnambool and Russells Creek ahead of them in the coming weeks.
Instead Walsh is using those two matches along with the clash with Allansford to challenge his players on the areas they need to improve.
He said there was a method behind that approach, adding he wants them to be well prepared for “high pressure games” that were forthcoming later in the year.
“In terms of the feedback we’re giving the guys, we’ll be starting to be more specific with them and we’ll start challenging them with things to work on to then put into those high pressure games,” he said.
“We’ll be using training as well to work on that too but we’ll be driving them pretty hard over the next few weeks.”
The Power will also get an opportunity of a different kind this week, with the chance to play on the wide expanses of the Reid Oval against the Bombers ahead of them.
“It’s the only chance we get to play on the Reid and I think we missed out on playing there last year, but any chance you get to play on a big ground is a good opportunity,” Walsh said.
“The finals are normally played on the big grounds like Merrivale and the Reid and we want to test our game style on those bigger grounds.
“I think it should suit us with our kids and our speed so we’ll be really looking forward to that opportunity.”