Reserved with Matt Cavedon - Round Seven

The Subiaco Reserves side currently sit in sixth position on the ladder with two wins and three losses.

Last time out, the Reserves side led for the best part of three quarters but fell away late against West Perth, this came after a strong win over Reserves front running side Claremont under lights on a Friday night.

Reserves coach Matt Cavedon checks back in after a big few weeks for the Subiaco Reserves side.

Matt, few weeks since our last check in, a win over Claremont and a loss over West Perth in your last two games, how do you feel about the recent form of your boys?

At this point the difference between our good and our poor is simply too big. We are working hard as a group in educating the team to increase consistency in our performances, whilst developing the boys as footballers and athletes. Inconsistency is something commonly associated with young sides however, we don’t condone it. We expect their energy and intent to be constant but acknowledge the education process needs to be consistent and ongoing.  

Been a difficult month given the lack of footy, only one game in the three weeks since your Friday night match, which itself was an emotional occasion, how hard has it been managing guys through this part of the fixture?

We are pretty fortunate at Subi to have a strong and well planned S&C program that we think will keep the boys physically at the mark. From a football perspective we have tried to maximise this fixturing to improve understanding on structure and recently we have had a real focus on the development boys working on upholding and maintaining Subi standards. 

The Claremont win, against the top side to hold them to just six goals and 11 scoring shots for the game, must have been pleased with the all round effort and defensive performance of that game?

We had a strong focus on our ability to win contested football against Claremont and it paid dividends, with a well-rounded performance. 

Conversely the game against West Perth, you seemed to have the game in control for large parts, led for the majority of the first three quarters, what happened in that last quarter?

We have reviewed our performance against WP and in all honesty we certainly didn’t play up to our expectations and went away from our areas of focus. West Perth started the last quarter aggressively and kicked the first couple of goals quickly, after that we weren’t able to arrest their momentum. Structurally we were off all day and we made some fundamental errors that made the end margin more flattering than the game suggested.

One of the notable discrepancies looking at the statistics of that game, you were a minus 48 in tackles, as they led tackles 99 to 51, given most coaches pride themselves on tackle pressure, I assume this was a disappointing aspect of the loss against West Perth?

Absolutely, this was the result of a combination of intent and decision making. However, contested ball is a strength of our boys so we expect them to bounce back this week against Peel.

Individually, Daniel Leach continues to be one who continues to rack the possessions up, he had 30 touches and two goals against West Perth, are you pleased with how Daniel is approaching his footy this year?

Daniel is really focussed on improving his game. He had a taste of League footy in the pre-season and he continues to incrementally improve each week as he pushes for opportunity at League level.

Shannon Nelson and Braden Fimmano seem to be working into some form, both had their best games against West Perth, Nelson kicked two goals and had five tackles in that game against West Perth, Fimmano had 28 possessions, you continue to need these sort of games from these sort of players in your squad?

I really enjoyed Shannon’s game the last few weeks, against WP he played well but he also had a lot of opportunities early that could have taken his performance from good to great; this is really positive as he is putting himself in good positions and has raised his work rate in the last 3 weeks. If Shannon can keep pushing, we expect his performances to continue to improve. Braden is a very good ball user and rarely wastes a disposal. The pleasing element this week was he was able to play a role of one of West Perth midfielders and he not only quelled his opponents influence he continued to gather more football himself.

Peel up next, you guys sit sixth, they sit seventh, on the surface this appears a pretty important clash even though it is still early in the season?

I think the whole reserves competition is very even and there is a constant state of flux with player availability that is driven by the health of the whole clubs list. Every game is important, but primarily we will be looking for improvement as individuals and as a team to ensure we keep learning and developing.

Anything different to expect heading into this game, or given the long break are the boys just fresh and ready to get back out there?

 Nothing different, we should all expect the boys to be excited and refreshed after the week off.