No VFL matches were played last weekend due to the interstate fixture, but eight matches into the season, Northern Bullants coach David Teague reviews the year so far.

WE DON’T really do a formal mid-season review as such, but the coaches did sit down and have a chat about how things have gone so far last week. On the whole, we’re pleased with the way things have been going, but we did identify a few little areas that we can improve on.

We’ve been up and down a little bit throughout the year. We had 95 tackles against North Ballarat which is a record, but the week before that we lost by 118 points and our tackling was shocking.

We’re in ninth position on four wins and four losses which is not bad considering we lost some quality players at the end of last season.

Obviously the playing list changes according to Carlton’s needs, but overall consistency is probably the one area that we really want to improve on.

We feel that having me and Matty Lappin on the field with the boys has worked quite well and it is getting better as we go along. I’ve actually broken my hand so I’ll be in the box for the next five or six weeks, so we’ll have to adjust to that.

The player-coach situation that we have here is a bit different, but I’ve really enjoyed the challenge. There are little improvements being made each week like setting some routines in place on match days.

What I’ve really enjoyed has been seeing the development of some of the younger guys and when they have taken the step and debuted it’s a really good feeling. Not that we’ve done a lot, but you like to think that you’ve provided a little bit of help to them on their football journey which is really satisfying. 

We’ve had a few young guys really step up. Dennis Armfield and Steven Browne have been promoted to the seniors, Darren Pfeiffer has played a few senior games and Matty Kreuzer has been a regular; so we’ve had a few players make their AFL debuts and we get pretty excited by that.

As much as I want to win as the Bullants coach, I want to see these guys play at the highest level; they’re at Carlton for exactly that reason.

We want to develop our guys and give them the best-possible chance to play in the AFL.

I was very pleased for Dennis Armfield after his excellent debut against the Cats. Every time I’ve given him a job, he sticks to it; he’s not worried about his own possessions, he just wants to beat his man. He took that attitude into the seniors and he showed that he can do it at the highest level.

It wasn’t an easy night for the back line, but Brownie was very clean with his skills. Geelong is a big strong team and they put a lot of pressure on and lay a lot of tackles, but each time he got his hands on the ball he didn’t seem to cough it up and he used the ball reasonably well which is a good sign for a young guy early on in his career   

Davey Ellard did really well to get promoted off the rookie list and make his debut against the Eagles in round seven. Jake Edwards and Adam Hartlett have both played a bit of senior football and Mark Austin has really taken some steps forward in the last few weeks.

We’ve also had some excellent input from some of our more experienced guys like Jason Saddington, Simon Wiggins and Adam Bentick who gave the younger blokes the opportunity to bounce a few ideas off and follow their lead both on the field and in terms of their preparation.

If we can continue setting a few things in place with these young guys, when they do get their opportunity at senior level they can be better-equipped to grab it, which is what we’re about.

There could be just one little thing to focus on and if they can do that, their natural ability will keep them in the game.

It’s pretty simple when you’re talking about young blokes; it’s all about doing the basics well over and over. If they can do that and use it as a foundation then their natural ability and flair can come in on top of that.

You don’t want to limit a player’s flair, but if they can get to the stage where the basics are second nature then those other things become easier.

We get back into it against Williamstown who are on top of the ladder this week. We suffered a heavy loss to Casey coming out of the last break, so we’ve got a point to prove and I will be mentioning that to the boys throughout the week at training.