By Mark Murray
THE Western Jets recorded a comfortable 57-point win over the Northern Territory on Saturday but suffered two key injuries in the process.
Stephen Kennedy could miss up to six weeks after breaking his arm while Scott Sherlock could be in doubt for this week’s clash with Bendigo after suffering a heavy hit to the head.
Jets regional manager Shane Sexton said the injury to Kennedy, who was clearly the Jets’ best player against NT, was disappointing.
It happened late in the match in which Kennedy had been a star.
“It’s always disappointing when they get inured because they have been working hard,” Sexton said.
“It looks like Stephen will miss about six weeks, which is really shattering for him and it will create a few more challenges for us.
“Sherlock might struggle to come up this week as well, so there was a few disappointing things to come out of the match.
“It was good to win but we didn’t have it all out own way.”
The Jets should have crushed Northern Territory by a lot more than 57 points, finishing with a wasteful 15.27.117 to 9.6.60.
But Sexton paid tribute to the pressure applied by the Jets’ opponent in the third and fourth quarters.
“We got off to a fantastic start and really controlled the game and were dominating,” he said.
“But they really made it a fight after that and we probably didn’t play to our ability for the next two quarters.
“We started well and finished well, but in between wasn’t so flash.
“We’ll definitely need to have a look at what went wrong in the third quarter.”
The Jets came out after half-time and had their chance to bury NT, kicking 2.11 for the term.
They finished with a 4.4 final term but still restricted NT to just three goals after the main change.
Kennedy was sensational in the win before being injured while Sherlock, Jordan Robbins, Callum Ward, Nathan Lyons and Mitchell Banner played leading roles in the triumph.
The win sees the Jets remain in the TAC Cup top four.
“We’d done our homework on NT and knew they were going to make it a fight, which they did,” Sexton said.
“We took the foot off the pedal, which hopefully we learn from, but we still ran out with a pretty strong win.
“But we have a lot to work on, which is positive.”
