COMING off our mid-season break we have put the first half of the season behind us. We know we are capable of playing much better footy and that’s the test for the second part of the season.

Injuries are no excuse, every team experiences them at different stages and each week we send out 22 fit guys who we expect to do a job.

I wrote last week that Stephen Gilham and Rick Ladson were knocking on the door of selection after some impressive performances for Box Hill in the VFL.

A few fans might have noticed neither of these boys played in the VFL over the weekend but I can reassure you that they haven’t had injury setbacks. We are just trying to keep them in good condition to give them the best chance of being selected for our game against West Coast this week.

We have given them the opportunity to have a good week on the training track, if they had have played at Box Hill they would have only had a six-day turnaround. Combine that with the fact we’re flying to Perth and we felt it was best to rest them.

Cyril Rioli is hopefully only two weeks away. His rehab is going well and we look forward to getting back his ball-winning ability and his defensive pressure.
This week’s game is our second visit to WA this season. It is never an easy trip and the boys need to play four consistent quarters. If we want to keep this season alive, we can’t afford to be up and down. When we played West Coast in round five at Aurora Stadium we were very patchy and we will need to rectify this for Saturday.

We had a good contribution from our forwards in that game, Sam Mitchell had 40 touches playing  off half-back and Brad Sewell and Chance Bateman also did well, so we are looking to get a good effort from our core group of players this week.

Watching Box Hill’s win over the weekend, there were plenty of positive signs. One of the more impressive players was Josh Kennedy who played a great game in the middle.

Josh is starting to play some really consistent footy and he will provide food for thought at match committee. We like to see the guys pushing up from Box Hill and putting their hands up for senior selection. With senior players it’s good to have healthy competition for spots.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.