MALLEE Eagles will probably take an unchanged side into a crucial home game against Woorinen tomorrow.
It means the Eagles will have a couple still missing, most notably boom recruit Tyson Mihocek.
Probably of greater concern to coach Boden Alexander will be how to improve the Eagles’ last quarters.
Twice in three weeks the Eagles’ have been rendered totally ineffectual for the last half-hour.
It almost cost them the game against Cohuna when they won by three points after having a five goal three-quarter-time lead.
Against Swan Hill a seven point advantage became a disappointing 22-point loss.
“Obviously over the last few weeks when you look at the stats our fourth quarters have been disappointing,” Alexander said.
“We’ve failed to score and we’ve been dominated by the opposition and that comes down to a lack of concentration in the fourth quarter.”
Alexander said the Eagles needed to be honest with themselves and be able to implement that honesty on the field.
“And hopefully we can think about what’s happening and rectify it from there,” he said.
Alexander said the Eagles would look to match up on Jason Iannucci and Matt Iannucci in the midfield.
“From memory they did some damage against us in the finals last year,” he said.
But his side would be the primary focus.
“Obviously we’re just working on our game this week rather than focussing on the opposition,” Alexander said.
“It’s just about being proactive as a team rather than reactive to an opponent. That’s our key focus.”
Woorinen, too, will have the same side it fielded in its most recent match.
For Nick Trenfield, however, the most recent match dates back to a fortnight at Barham.
And for the Tigers coach it was not a memorable game, despite picking up the four points.
“We played terribly, we didn’t play well at all,” Trenfield said.
Trenfield said he hoped Woorinen’s performance against Koondrook Barham — an 11 point win in a scrappy affair — was an early-season aberration.
“You can put it down to it being an early game of the season and we haven’t found our touch yet,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll be better this week against the Mallee Eagles.”
Trenfield said the playing group was upbeat about its form.
“It’s not from lack of trying, we just didn’t play good footy… we’ll work pretty hard at training and hopefully we can see a bit of that pay off,” he said.
TIP: Mallee Eagles by 11 points.
