The Lions were without Jared Polec, who travelled to Melbourne with the senior team as an emergency, while Broc McCauley’s late inclusion in the seniors meant that the Reserves side was without a ruckman.
“It’s not often you go into a game without a recognised ruckman,” Reserves Coach Nathan Clarke said. “The senior team had all three of the Club’s available ruckman in Leuenberger, Clark and McCauley.”
“We used a young bloke from the Western Magpies Scott Clarke in the centre because he has a great leap on him. Then we rotated Aaron Cornelius in there, but you can get banged up in the ruck and we wanted to protect him a bit.”
“We started the third quarter with a tall forward line and rotated Niall McKeever through the ruck. To be honest, we were probably a bit too tall up forward and lacked some crumbers,” he said.
“Trialling Niall in the ruck was just another part of his development as an AFL footballer. We ended up shifting him back into defence.”
“Tom Collier performed the ruck role late in the third and in the last. Tom actually gave us some drive in the last quarter because we effectively had four midfielders starting in the square.”
Clarke said there were plenty of positive signs among the young Lions players who really matched it against their more experienced Morningisde opponents.
“Pat Karnezis found some form,” Clarke said.
“He worked his butt off and was as important as anyone in our late surge. We moved him to half-back late in the third quarter and his run and overlap was terrific.”
“Cornelius was also good. He had six or seven shots on goal, but sprayed three of them out on the full. In fact, the team collectively kicked four set shots out on the full in the first half alone.”
“Sam Sheldon was very good, very energetic. There was an incident in the second quarter when we moved him on the ball to try and stem some of Morningside’s early momentum and he threw his body over the footy and copped a free kick. He was a bit dazed afterwards, but that effort really sparked us.”
“Collier and Mitch Golby were probably our two best players. Golby mops up so well, knows when to leave his opponent and is really composed.”
“Bryce Retzlaff had a fantastic first half, but faded late. With our lack of recognised talls, he probably suffered in terms of getting very little rest. He did a lot of work in the early part of the game and I think he finished with three goals. It was understandable that he tired a bit in the end.”
The Reserves will be looking to notch up their first win of the NEAFL season this Saturday when they face 2010 QAFL Runners-Up Labrador at Cooke-Murphy Oval.
“Labrador just scraped over the line against Redland last week and have proven themselves to be a competitive unit,” he said.
“Our boys are faced with a good, tough draw to start the season. You couldn’t ask for a better preparation.”
“We will have played the reigning Grand Finalists in the opening two rounds and then go up against the Sydney Swans, GWS and Gold Coast Reserves over the next few weeks.”
